BREAKING: Volusia County Solves Absolutely Nothing with Sex Offender Residency Restriction Hike—Now Has More Homeless Offenders Wandering the Streets
Well, well, well… would you look at that? A couple of years ago Volusia County decided it was a great idea to expand residency restrictions for registered citizens from 1,000 feet to 1,500 feet. Because obviously, 1,000 feet just wasn’t safe enough, right?
And what happened next? A massive drop in crime? Nope. More homelessness and less ability for law enforcement to even find the people they’re supposed to be “monitoring.”
But hey, we at FAC are just the people who’ve been shouting this from the rooftops for years. What do we know?
Volusia County now boasts the ninth-highest number of homeless registrants in the state. Congratulations! That’s quite the leaderboard you’re climbing. Deputies now get to play hide-and-seek with transient registrants who don’t have a legal place to live thanks to a policy change that—shocker!—backfired.
According to this article, even County Councilman Don Dempsey is scratching his head, saying, “It’s kind of alarming we have that many.” Kind of? KIND OF? At least Councilman Dempsey didn’t vote for the ordinance a couple of years ago when it was enacted. What did the rest of the County Counsel think was going to happen when you push people into the margins of society, close every door to housing, and expect them to just… disappear?
One “solution” being floated? Amending the ordinance. Great, why not getting rid of it, since it worked so well?
So to recap the logic:
Restrict housing options
Remove individuals from stable living situations
Increase homelessness
Make it harder for law enforcement to track them
Increase felony charges due to impossible compliance
And this is supposed to increase public safety? But go on Volusia, keep pretending these laws are working.
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FAC, why am I no longer getting updates? I looked at my spam and nothing and figured nothing going on then I found two articles posted on here and I got neither of the posts? If you do not want me on here, just say so and I will leave.
Cherokee
Please don’t go. I wish that I could be more persuasive than that, but FAC would lose big without your input.
You can write to [email protected] with your inquiry. The site readers cannot assist you with this (likely technical) issue. We don’t understand why you would assume we don’t want you on here. As long as your comments are respectful and relevant, you are welcome here. As a side note; your comment is an illustration of the type of comment that is not relevant to the topic of the post.
Looks like Mr. Dempsey just found out that Leopards do indeed eat faces.
I live in volusia for 5 1/2 years now and a have seen a drop in residency checks. They use to be right out after registering. Now sometimes its 3 mos afterwards. Im wondering if they dont have enough officers anymore to allocate to doing it.
@JUst
I want them to come and get it over with because I do not want to leave the house and miss them and get the nasty letter stuck to my door if I am not home. Having seen my cop now for months after I registered and am tired of leaving then coming home to find a flyer on my door. Not sure how that is not compelled speech.
Also, if I am not home, they go and talk to the neighbors to ask if I still live there. Of course, that just stirs up the neighbors even more to hate me. Where I register, there are so many people who have to register that I don’t think they have enough officers to spare to even do the checks regularly but they are not going to admit that.
Cherokee
You don’t ger along with your neighbors I’m a President of neighborhood watch program , work closely with Sheriff, if needed. I know all my neighbors and make sure nothing shady is going on.
“You work closely”. who pays you?
President of What?
Neighborhood watch program….what is that?
cj
The aim of neighborhood watch includes educating residents of a community on security and safety and achieving safe and secure neighborhoods. However, when a criminal activity is suspected, members are encouraged to report to authorities, and not. And I’m in charge
@mrs
There are LOTS of Karens running HOA’s and that is why I live in a neighborhood without one. The first house I ever had, had an HOA. Every single resident had to repaint their house once a year. Retired people cannot afford to pain their house once a year. And there was nothing in the by-laws stating that when I moved in. After 4 years of daily harassment, I moved, and I was not alone. Difference between an HOA director and a dictator, but some of them are one in the same.
cher
First of all you can call me mrs Daksha… And yes we keep our community safe and presentable. No predators, no druggies.
@MRS
Not a single predator lives on my street. I am listed as an offender and that was from almost 40 years ago. One mistake 40 years ago does not make a person a predator.
A predator is someone who doesn’t learn their lesson and continues to prey on others.
AND, everyone keeps talk about all of us raping kids. Not everyone on the registry had a victim that was a under 18. Also, not that it is legal but some were 19 and had a girlfriend who was 17 and they got caught by the parents and ended up arrested.
Thirdly, if no offenders live on your street, why are you coming on here to bother us? I could understand if you were trying to get someone on the registry to move from your street but all you are doing is trolling for something that isn’t relevant to your situation. Are you obsessed with people who are on the registry? I can give you an autographed photo of me to put in your scrap book if you like since you have this obsession.
Cher
I don’t have obsession with anybody( you should be lucky) And, yes we had pedophile living there( not anymore)We run tight ship here. You want my autograph, read my books.
They complain where registrants are living and so create laws to restrict them and then complain when the registrants become homeless from the very laws they created to begin with!
The Council is creating the homeless problem and then complaining about it!
Caught my charge in volusia county and as soon as i saw how they treated the people on the registry i moved. all the restrictions are purposeful they are making it so not even the cops know the rues and you will violate one of them and be charged. there whole goal is to say on TV that offenders re-offend at a high rate. they don’t tell the world that the re-offense is not sexually just that they re-offend. the more times they can violate you the more times they can validate their jobs
@ No hope
And once you get a 2nd charge, even a registry ding, you can never be removed from the registry according to Florida’s current statue. My lawyer tells me all the time to not get arrested so if and when we can go to get removed, you have a clean record. Well, it is NOT that damn easy. You can get pulled over for driving while being an offender. (Happens to me a lot)
They come up with a lame excuse that you were following too close, driving while being a registrant, your license plate was dirty or any list of BS to pull you over. Especially if you go through a small city or town where they get their ticket quota from license plate readers.
Just get it over with and send us all to an island. Heck they could make a reality show out of us, sex offender island. Of course, with my luck, after we were there, they would “Accidently” drop a nuke on us.
I think that the residency restriction expansion forced one of the few places that housed registrants to close. That was the motel out on 17/92 across from the VCBJ to close completely or stop accepting new registrants
There are lots of reasons people become homeless. Some people live alone but get arrested. 6 months later when they are finally able to get out of jail, by then their house has been foreclosed or repossessed.
Losing their job, being on a small pension or social security, illness/being sick, in debt, etc etc. Many people, especially on the registry are one step away from having nothing. And more and more businesses are not hiring people on the registry. The entire situation is crazy as even people who have a murder charge have an easier transition than we do, although may still be a challenge, they do have a better chance and as far as I know, no registry restrictions.