Watch where you step! Proximity ordinances create trip wires for registrants.

A recent arrest in Melbourne underscores how Brevard County’s restrictive proximity ordinance creates a minefield for registrants who are simply trying to go about their daily lives. According to reports, a 46-year-old man was arrested around 9 p.m. after walking through the parking lot of Melbourne High School — long after the school was closed and deserted. Police said the man, who has an offense dating back more than 15 years, admitted he was a registrant but explained he was merely taking a shortcut to the sidewalk before it started to rain. Nevertheless, he was charged with violating Brevard County Ordinance 74-102, which prohibits registrants from being within 1,000 feet of schools, parks, playgrounds, and daycares.

What’s troubling is that this arrest took place at night, when no students or staff were present. Yet the ordinance applies 24 hours a day, seven days a week, regardless of whether children are anywhere nearby. It also covers the areas within 1000 feet of schools, parks, playgrounds and daycares, requiring persons to know what path is at least 1000 feet away from the property lines. This creates a situation where registrants must constantly guess whether they’ve unknowingly stepped into one of countless overlapping 1,000-foot buffer zones that surround nearly every public space in the county. There are no signs marking these invisible boundaries. A person could be in compliance one moment and in violation the next, without ever realizing it.

This is not public safety — it’s entrapment by geography. When ordinances are written so broadly that even crossing a parking lot at night becomes a criminal act, we have to ask whether the goal is truly protecting the public or perpetuating punishment. The individual in this case has long since completed his sentence and is trying to stay compliant, yet he continues to get caught up in technical violations that serve no rehabilitative or protective purpose.

We call on Sheriffs and law enforcement agencies across Florida — particularly in counties with proximity ordinances — to exercise discretion and apply common sense. Arresting someone for taking a shortcut through an empty school parking lot late at night serves no one. It wastes law enforcement resources, destabilizes individuals who are already under intense supervision, and does nothing to make our communities safer.

It’s time for a more rational, evidence-based approach — one that recognizes that true safety comes from stability, not from criminalizing geography or punishing people for where they happen to step.

SOURCE