The threat of a court fight prompted Palm Beach County Tuesday to ease restrictions on where convicted sexual offenders can live.
The county had been prohibiting sexual offenders from living within 2,500 feet of schools, school bus stops, day care facilities, parks, playgrounds and other places children regularly gather.
Now the county will follow the state standard, which forbids sexual offenders from living within 1,000 feet of most of those areas children frequent. But the county’s rule, like state law, will no longer put a limit on proximity to school bus stops, because there are so many.
A legal challenge filed from a Palm Beach County Jail inmate combined with recent court rulings persuaded county officials to soften the restrictions, County Attorney Denise Nieman said.
The lawsuit argues that the county’s rules are too restrictive and that sexual offenders, who have served their time in jail, can’t find a place to live.
The concern is that if the residency rules are so strict that sexual offenders can’t find legal places to live, they will stop reporting their actual addresses and become tougher to keep track of, according to the county.
“People aren’t able to find a place to live [and] you cannot monitor where people are,” Nieman said. “That is a huge problem. … Nobody wants to hear about it.”
The County Commission in 2006, along with local governments across Florida, decided to make its sexual offender residency restrictions tougher than state standards.
Cities and counties throughout Florida have set different standards — from 1,000 to 3,000 feet — aimed at keeping sexual offenders from living too close to schools and other places filled with children.
Miami-Dade County’s rules were so tough that a community of about 100 homeless sexual offenders at one point ended up living under the Julia Tuttle Causeway.
Palm Beach County officials “were really surprised” to learn that having tougher sexual offender residency rules than the state could run afoul of recent court rulings, said County Mayor Priscilla Taylor, who heads the County Commission.
The commission Tuesday unanimously approved the changes without discussion and without anyone from the public showing up to raise concerns.
“The state [standards] seem to be doing well with the 1,000 feet,” Taylor said.
The county rule change approved Tuesday takes effect immediately, which Nieman hopes will result in the legal challenge getting dismissed.
The county’s sexual offender residency rule only applies to areas outside of city limits. Cities with their own sexual offender residency rules that are more restrictive than the state law should also consider making a change, Nieman said.
Palm Beach County had just over 900 registered sex offenders in 2013.
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