Source: miaminewtimes.com 11/5/26
Many might ask, “Why should anyone care about South Florida’s sex offenders?” But the issue is more complicated than it appears.
Kenny spent his first couple nights out of prison sleeping in a Walgreens parking lot on North Federal Highway. It’s one of the few places he can legally spend the night after serving his time.
The Hollywood native in his 50s still considers himself better off than some. His crime hasn’t prevented him from holding down a job, which he needs to afford the camper he now lives out of while confined to a narrow strip of Broward County each night between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m., along with dozens of other men. Others in Kenny’s position told New Times they’re essentially being forced to live in nocturnal parking lot homeless encampments.
Their circumstances are the result of a patchwork of residency restrictions that leave registered sex offenders with few legal places to live, even after they’ve completed their prison sentences.
Serial drunk drivers, sex offenders, fentanyl dealers, million-dollar fraudsters, murderers — no category of formerly incarcerated people faces restrictions like those Florida imposes on registered sex offenders, who carry a designation on their driver’s licenses and face strict limits on where they can live. The state and local governments bar many of them from living near schools, playgrounds, parks and pools.
The laws are intended to protect the public, particularly children, from people convicted of sexual offenses. Across South Florida, overlapping state and local restrictions effectively push registered offenders into tiny slivers of the map. Many of these men — and in Florida, the registry is 98% men — sleep in cars, campers and makeshift homeless encampments.
The question of how to re-integrate these men into society has no simple answers, only varying levels of uncomfortable choices. But in their effort to protect people, governments may find their punitive restrictions have gone too far. Experts who study recidivism and public safety say these laws are now so strict they’re likely to work against public safety. By effectively creating a homeless population on the edge of desperation, these measures impose burdens that research shows may keep these men trapped on the streets — unable to work, unable to rebuild stable lives.
In Broward County, the consequences are visible in two Fort Lauderdale homeless encampments, where registered sex offenders spend their nights in vehicles parked in the scanty areas where they’re legally permitted to reside.
New Times visited both encampments in October as part of a…
