Author: FAC Contributor #3

According to NPR affiliate WGCU, Florida Senator Lauren Book is trying to create a “look back window” where victims of sexual battery can bring a civil lawsuit, where previously barred by statute of limitations. This window would allow victims to file civil suits against their alleged offenders and would likely open up a flurry of lawsuits. That would be on

The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals today determined that oral arguments will be necessary in John Doe #1, et al v. Miami-Dade County, et al (Case No. 19-10254). The appeal originates from a case initiated in 2014 brought on behalf of registrants in Miami-Dade County who were legislated into homelessness by a Sex Offender Residency Restriction (SORR). The consequences of

Today at 1:00PM on South Florida’s NPR affiliate 91.3, they will be running a story on sex offenders. For those in the South Florida area, you can listen live on your radio. For those out of the area, you can stream it live online from https://www.npr.org/ or search for WLRN 91.3 HD1 https://www.wlrn.org/topic/radio    

Every morning I scan the news for headlines containing certain keywords, so I can report any relevant updates to our membership. Among the results today, I find the Palm Beach Sheriff’s Office’s publication of a sexual predator moving into Boynton Beach, as published in a local newspaper’s website. To avoid bringing further unwanted attention to the individual, I won’t link

OSCEOLA COUNTY, Fla. – Detectives with the Osceola County Sheriff’s Office recently conducted checks on the hundreds of sex offenders and predators in the county and found dozens of them are still breaking the law. When members of the sex offender and predator unit checked up on all 550 offenders and predators living in Osceola County, they didn’t just check

Although Cuomo’s proposal purports to take sexual violence seriously, it aggressively ignores reality in favor of lazy solutions. Data from the U.S. Department of Justice indicates that most people who are held accountable for a sex offense aren’t rearrested for another sex offense. Research indicates that more than 95 percent of all arrests for sex crimes involve someone without a prior sex crime conviction. Data involving arrests of people with prior sex offense convictions specifically involving social media and other online platforms is limited, but a 2009 study examining trends in arrests for sex crimes against minors between 2000 and 2006 found that 96 percent involved someone not on a registry. And a 2016 article appearing in the Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law observed that “to our knowledge, no data have yet demonstrated that banning sex offenders from the Internet or [social media platforms] actually reduces recidivism rates.” Similarly, buried in the middle of BuzzFeed’s reporting was the fact that—of the cases of sexual violence facilitated by online platforms—“only a fraction” involved someone on a sex offense registry.

In other words, even assuming that everyone with a prior conviction is banished from the digital landscape (and assuming that those who are determined to commit a crime don’t simply lie about their presence), the reality is that the vast majority of sexual violence remains unaffected.