Tag: Florida

FL: I count too!

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[floridaactioncommittee.org] Last night I lay awake in bed with a puzzle racking my brain. How can I finish the sentence “sex offenders shouldn’t be allowed to vote, because ____”? It’s an exercise I go through often, and certainly during every legislation session, where someone comes up with a new “sex offender” rule and I try to play devil’s advocate and come up with some previously unforeseeable scenario, where I can make the rule seem rational. Sex offenders can’t be garbage men? OK… how about ‘sex offenders shouldn’t be allowed to…

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FL: My boyfriend is a registered sex offender

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[bbc.co.uk] House-hunting always comes with challenges, right? One bed or two? Are the bills included? And, of course, the location. But, for my boyfriend and I, it was on a whole new level, because we had to find somewhere very specific. He’s on probation, convicted nearly nine years ago, when he was 18, of Lewd and Lascivious Molestation and one count of Lewd and Lascivious Battery, more commonly known as statutory rape of a child older than 12 but younger than 16. The probation means that any flat or house…

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FL: A residential ministry deals with the sex offender registry

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Baptist minister Glenn Burns calls the evening of April 7, 2016, the “crucifixion.” It was the toughest test of his 40-year career. Burns leads a Christian social services ministry in northern Florida called the Good Samaritan Network. Until last April, the nonprofit was headquartered in the town of Woodville, just outside Tallahassee. Its food bank served 7,000 people a month. It also ran a thrift store and a home for women transitioning off the street from sex work. And it operated a Christian home for men reentering society after prison…

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FL: Call To Action: Miami-Dade to Consider Bovo Amendment Tomorrow

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[floridaactioncommittee.org] Tomorrow, at the regular meeting of county commissioners, the “Bovo Amendment” will be considered. The Amendment seeks to remove a safeguard contained in the overnight camping ordinance that would require homeless who are sleeping overnight on public property, be afforded the opportunity to go to a homeless shelter before being arrested. In other words, Miami-Dade wants the ability to arrest homeless sex offenders on sight. More specifically, since the Miami-Dade County Homeless Trust Chair could not find a solution to the transient sex offender problem in 10 years, his…

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FL: ClearMyCase suit DISMISSED!

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[floridaactioncommittee.org] We are pleased to have learned that Judge Dimitrouleas DISMISSED the lawsuit filed against us by ClearMyCase. For some time we’d been receiving complaints from FAC members and registrants from other states about a company out of Texas called ClearMyCase.com. The company had been using the State Sex Offender registries as a mailing list to solicit “fees” to help “de-register” people from the Sex Offender Registry. Read more  

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FL: Another Reason why Sex Offender Registration Fees are a Bad Idea

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[floridaactioncommittee.org] Sex offender registration fees are a bad idea. Setting aside the constitutionality of charging individuals for the “privilege” of registering as a sex offender – something that’s not only involuntary but that all would certainly prefer not to do – and claiming it’s not a “penalty”, it’s a logistical nightmare. Because of the public website and the stigma that comes with it, most registered sex offenders are either grossly underemployed or unemployed. Many of the collateral consequences of being a registrant are extremely expensive. Registrants are required, in most…

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FL: Inside the isolated US community dubbed the ‘Miracle Village’

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[dailymail.co.uk] From the outside it looks like any sleepy suburb, but the so-called ‘Miracle Village’ contains a much darker secret. Indeed, half of the population in the Florida community are registered sex offenders, who are forced to live away from the rest of society. The so-called village, located outside of Pahokee, features in a new BBC documentary presented by Stacey Dooley looking at laws in the state that punish paedophiles and other sex offenders for life. Read more  

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FL: New school program helps first-time sex offenders

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[Ocala.com] Students engaged in consensual sexual activity Each school year, about three dozen Marion County students on average get kicked out of school after being caught groping or engaged in a consensual sex act on a school bus or on campus. To reduce the amount of lost instruction time, the School District will launch a new diversion program in January for first-time offenders in hopes of keeping these students in the classroom. Students caught in the act can forgo attending an alternative school if they attend six nights of after-school…

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FL: Oconomowoc tweaks sex offender residency restrictions in wake of federal court decision

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[Florida Journal Sentinel]   CITY OF OCONOMOWOC – The common council on Tuesday, Dec. 5, voted to repeal and replace the city’s 2011 ordinance outlining residency restrictions for registered sex offenders, joining a handful of other area communities to do so in the wake of lawsuits and a federal court decision earlier this year. Under the new rules, registered sex offenders who did not live in the city at the time of their offense could petition the common council to move into Oconomowoc. Such offenders are currently barred from attempting…

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FL: Death of sex offender in Georgia State Prison suspicious

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[Florida Action Committee]   Charles Lee Broady was halfway into a three-year sentence for failure to register as a sex offender when he was found dead, hanging in his cell. Next week, Broady was supposed to appear in Federal Court in a case he brought against the Georgia Department of Corrections after officers allowed gang members to attack him. The previous attacks had been so bad that, after one, his heart stopped and he had to be revived. His family suspects foul play. Read article

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FL: Inside the Remote, Little-Known Sanctuary for Sex Offenders

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Seen from a distance, perhaps from a low-flying helicopter, or standing a few hundred feet away on a road that cuts through the green sugarcane surrounding it, Miracle Village, in Central Florida outside of Pahokee, looks like it could be a modest retirement community. Perhaps a modern-day off-the-grid commune, carved from a little spot of remote farmland. Miracle Village, though, is neither. It is a community devoted entirely to housing convicted sex offenders. Full Article

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FL: Miami-Dade Commissioners Want Cops to Arrest Homeless Sex Offenders on Sight

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For 12 years, Miami-Dade’s registered sex offenders have been barred from living within 2,500 feet of any school, playground, or daycare. They’re effectively homeless by law, and today hundreds live in squalor in makeshift “tent cities” under bridges, near trailer parks, and on roadsides. After New Times reported on a camp near Hialeah, county officials called these encampments inhumane and unsanitary and promised a solution. That solution, though, apparently isn’t to amend the law or to find transitional housing. Two commissioners now want to simply put the offenders back in…

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FL: Sex offenders may soon be able to live closer to schools, day care centers in Jacksonville

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Registered sex offenders in the River City may soon be able to live closer to schools, public libraries and other places children frequent if the Jacksonville City Council has anything to say about it. The city council will undergo a second reading of city ordinance 2017-667 on Tuesday. The bill’s primary function is to reduce the required distance a registered sex offender or predator can reside near various locations from 2,500 feet to 1,500 feet, according to the bill’s description. The bill also advises, if passed, that new and upcoming…

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