Registrants and their families are suffering in the State of Georgia. The cause of their greatest concern is a state law that prohibits anyone convicted of a sex offense that took place after July 1, 2008, from living, working or loitering within 1,000 feet of a long list of locations including schools, churches and any place “where children congregate”. As a result of this law, there are thousands of families in Georgia that are already homeless or could become homeless at a moment’s notice.
One of those families includes a man convicted of a single sex offense who is currently on probation. He and his wife are lucky because they both have jobs and can afford to rent a home in order to live together while raising their infant daughter. That man has asked his probation officer for permission to rent a home at five different addresses, however, his probation office has refused to approve him and his family living at any of those addresses
To make matters worse, the man’s probation officer is forcing him to live in Tent City, a small triangle of land that is bordered by a state highway and an off-ramp. It is a small triangle of land that has no electricity, running water or sanitation. It is also a small triangle of land that is full of rats, snakes and spiders. Further, it is a small triangle of land which can only be escaped from by breaking another law, that is, by walking across a state highway.
There are at least a dozen other men who are required to live in Tent City. Some of those men have just arrived while others have lived there for three years or more. One of the men currently living in Tent City is a disabled veteran, who fought for our country for more than 14 years in both the Marines and the U.S. Army. Without warning, he was arrested while living in a veteran’s home in Columbus that welcomed him and provided him with a room to sleep in as well as three meals a day. After his arrest, this disabled veteran spent more than two months in jail because law enforcement determined that the veterans’ home, he was living in was less than 1,000 feet from a church. Upon release from jail, the veteran’s probation officer told him he could not return to the veteran’s home, but instead was required to live in Tent City.
Another man currently living in Tent City asked his probation officer permission to live with his father in a nearby town. The probation officer denied that request as well as three additional requests to live with friends or relatives. Because this man has a job, he could afford to pay for housing. However, he is prohibited from living in a home with running water, electricity and a toilet because his probation officer requires him to remain in Tent City.
In addition to the inhumane conditions found in Tent City, residents there face several additional challenges. For example, gunshots are often fired nearby. Although no one has yet been injured by those gunshots, one resident was threatened with death by a man who pointed a gun at his face.
Another challenge facing the residents of Tent City is that they are prohibited from entering a public shelter even in the face of a hurricane. One resident who feared the falling of trees at Tent City during a recent storm left Tent City and chose instead to shelter under the overhang of a local convenience store that was closed.
It is inhumane for anyone to be required to live in Tent City or any other location that lacks electricity, running water and sanitation. It is inhumane for families to be forced apart because a probation officer refuses to approve a residential address. This law must be stopped!
Photos from Tent City
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— by Janice Bellucci
read all Janice’s Journals
This is absolutely insane. History will not look favorably on this time for many things, but especially this. Vast majority of Americans don’t realize what’s actually going on and especially to whom (willing to bet almost no parent is aware that their teenagers can incredibly easily end up on the registry for the crime of a nude-selfie). And even those that are aware, think this is a fitting PUNISHMENT (we certainly can’t say the people who are making these laws are ignorant of reality). It’s truly unfortunate that our current system has no recourse for plainly bad laws specifically designed to hurt people. We’ve given our lawmakers just shy of a license to kill for votes. Because, let’s be realistic, most of these laws are just that: pandering for votes under the guise of “public safety”.
The total irony of this is that we have daily national outrage on every news outlet about the conditions at the border, families being separated, people living in unsanitary and overcrowded conditions, and fighting over a humanitarian aid package to help them, yet, right here in the interior politicians are pushing more laws to force people into theses same abhorrent conditions, people who have paid their debt to society, people who are legal citizens. Yet not a peep about that from either side.
Georgia’s residency “restriction” laws murdered 6 year old Christopher Barrios (he was choked to death). There are likely other victims but Christopher is an undisputed one. And certainly Georgia’s “$EX offender” harassment laws in totality have murdered other children, including 13 year old Melinda Hinson. Those children were murdered by the hands of Georgia’s criminal legislators.
The main scumbag criminal Georgia legislator, Jerry Keen, claimed that his murder of Christopher demonstrated why Georgia needs his “restrictions”!! To even dream of saying such a thing a person would have to believe that most of the general population are morons. He was correct apparently. Georgia still has their laws and their criminal legislators. Last I heard criminal Keen was enjoying retirement near where Christopher was murdered.
Why are innocent people murdered while the guilty are still free today?
Directly requiring someone to live in Tent City, or doing so indirectly by passing residency restrictions that have the same result, is banishment. That is cruel and unusual punishment. In addition, for those who committed their offenses before the effective date of the law, it is ex post facto punishment.
The Devil went down to Georgia….
This is banishment, plainly and clearly.
Yes Janice,
It MUST BE stopped. The thing about living in a system where so many DNA exoneration cases have been uncovered is that it informs the people of certain system truths.
Truth 1) No real evidence is needed to convict.
2) No real evidence is needed to banish folks from the community.
3) No real constitutional discipline, nor precedence, nor procedure is actually abided by administrators, cops, or bureaucrats.
This has serious implications for the people’s perceptions of faith in our justice systems. These negative perceptions of doubt and suspicion undermine the necessary sense of confidence & credibility & faith in our government. Ultimately a nation without credibility in the people’s eyes always fails.
@ EVERY BEATING HEART!
The term “Sex offender registry” was chosen with a purpose .
In reality it is a reactionary government database.
By advocates referring to the machine as a “registry” A truth is distorted.
The term registry was chosen purposefully to down play general public attitudes toward government databases.( that store individual citizen’s data points.)
The unionized democratic social police Byrne Grant folks knew damn well about those negative attitudes. Many folks still hold that view, especially 2nd Amendment’s folks. So I trust some of you ADVOCATES will stop using the term “registry” in favor of “the government database” formally known as the sex offender registry. (SNARK & SNORT)
I guess it all depends on how badly you want to win!
You choose.
The ACLU allowed this to happen because the target people are “sex offenders” If, this was any other politically correct groups, they would have put a stop this like ants on candy.
While I appreciate being kept aware of another Floridah type failure, I would appreciate it even more if those with legal resources, like Janice and team, could also provide an update on any failed or upcoming challenges.
Thanks for everything you do though.
Our government officials and the news media cover the stories of inhumane conditions at immigration receiving facilities on the border-
Why are they not doing the same for Tent Cities that registrants, citizens of this country, are forced to live in because of the punitive laws this country keeps throwing at it’s own citizens?
The pics of the “living conditions” they’re forced to endure is depressing. In the woods eat up by mosquitoes and left for dead. Dystopia has arrived!
In the Jeffrey Epstein case Technically the NYPD & Whom is in charge of keeping on top these things Broke the law! Personally we need laws that if police, judges, senators & legislation make laws with no evidence of the need for it, cops break the law or dont enforce laws & judges who break or dont enforce laws and judges who convict a person with no evidence should be punished. They do what they do without a care because they dont get punished! If they did they would think twice like pushing an enacting laws to move higher up the ladder.
Thanks
They should copy Taylor, California’s Supreme court decision and elimination of these conditions.