CALL TO ACTION: We have a chance to make a difference in the homeless problem for people on the sex offender registry

Aug 19, 2023 | 2 comments

How we can make a difference:

 

  • A reporter from 8 WFLA Tampa Bay said he has heard from registrants in several other areas of the state besides Pinellas Park that probationers are being “assigned” to wooded camps:  Hillsborough, Hernando, Manatee, Flagler, Brevard, and Palm Beach Counties.  Additionally, some FAC members are telling us that it is also happening in their county.
  • Follow-up story.
  • Many people are in these camps because of the residency restrictions.
  • There are Florida Legislators who are concerned about this issue enough that they want something done, and we need to take advantage of this opportunity to help the homeless situation by contacting our Florida Legislators about what is happening in Pinellas County and other counties in the state of Florida: Probation officers are sending people on sex offender probation who have no place to live into wooded encampments that have no running water, electricity, or sewage facilities.  THIS IS AN OPPORTUNITY THAT WE CANNOT LET PASS US BY!!!!

 

What could be working in favor for probationers who are homeless:

 

  • As a result of the 8 WFLA Tampa Bay story, State Representative Lindsay Cross has said that since the story aired, she has been contacted by other lawmakers who want to make changes:  make sure that neighborhoods are safe; make sure different state agencies are talking to each other; and make sure there are solutions for people on sex offender probation who are homeless.
  • She also agreed that while it will require state funding to solve the problem, it would cost more if residents of these camps like the one in Pinellas Park re-offend and are sent back to prison.
  • The representative wants a safe and healthy place for people in these camps to live by using resources to provide a place to stay that would be better than staying outdoors.
  • Finally, Representative Cross wants monitoring, some rehabilitation, and to use state funds so that registrants will have a safe and healthy place to live.  Hopefully, Cross desires this for ALL people on the registry.
  • AS WE FINALLY HAVE LEGISLATORS LISTENING TO US ON THE HOMELESS PROBLEM FOR PEOPLE ON THE REGISTRY, WE ALL NEED TO BE CONTACTING FLORIDA LEGISLATORS TO SHOW OUR STONG SUPPORT FOR FINDING REMEDIES FOR THIS DEPLORABLE HOMELESS SITUATION!!!!!!!

 

PLEASE Do the Following:

 

  • Contact Florida Legislators to let them know that what is happening to these individuals is inhumane.
  • Ask family members and friends to also contact our legislators about this atrocity that is occurring throughout our state.
  • If you choose to share any research with these elected county officials, they are probably told NOT to click on links.  Therefore, include a 1- to 2-sentence summary along with the title of the study or article that could be used in a google search.  You could also include the link if you choose to do so.
  • YOU CAN CHOOSE TO USE SOME OF THE FOLLOWING TALKING POINTS OR YOU OWN IDEAS.  PLEASE DO NOT JUST COPY/PASTE BUT INDIVIDUALIZE YOUR LETTER.

 

Possible Talking Points:

 

  • Florida relies heavily on tourism for revenue.  As a result of the Tampa Bay news story, you have no desire to travel to Pinellas, Hillsborough, Hernando, Manatee, Flagler, Brevard, and Palm Beach Counties where political leaders allow people to be treated so inhumanely.
  • Many of these people on probation have family members or friends they can live with, but the residence restrictions make that impossible, forcing them into homelessness.  Some of these same registrants have the money to rent a place, but either the residence restrictions prevent them from doing so, or landlords will not rent to them.
  • Residence restrictions are legislating people into homelessness.
  • ALL research shows that residence restrictions have had no effect on sexual recidivism rates.  Policies should be based on empirically-validated research.
  • All research shows that for an individual that has been released from prison to reintegrate successfully back into society as a law-abiding citizen, three things are needed: (1) a job; (2) family/community support; and (3) a place to live.  Without any one of these three needs being met, it is more difficult to achieve the goal of a successful reintegration, increasing the likelihood of re-offending.  
  • The sexual recidivism rate for people with a past sex offense is lower than that for all other crimes, with the exception of murder. 
  • In 93% of sex offenses committed against minors, the child knows the perpetrator (family member, school staff, coaching staff, church staff, etc.) debunking the myth of “stranger danger.”
  • Research shows that 90+% of FUTURE sex offenses will be committed by people NOT on the sex offender registry.  Who is monitoring this 90% and trying to prevent these new sex crimes from occurring?
  • The Florida registry is for life and Florida is only one of three states that has a lifetime registry.  Therefore, the Florida registry is only growing as is the number of homeless registrants.
  • THERE HAS BEEN NO MENTION OF ANY NEW SEX OFFENSES BEING COMMITTED BY ANY OF THE INDIVIDUALS FORCED INTO THESE HOMELESS CAMPS THROUGHOUT THE STATE.  Isn’t this what society is most concerned about?  While these individuals in these camps, who are not committing any sex crimes, are being so closely monitored by law enforcement, what is being done to prevent the future 90+% of sex crimes that will be committed by people who are NOT living in these camps or on the sex offender registry?
  • Florida Statute 828.13:  Any person who…has charge or custody, of any animal to abandon such animal to suffer injury or malnutrition or abandons any animal in a street, road, or public place without providing for the care, sustenance, protection, and shelter of such animal is guilty of a misdemeanor of the first degree, punishable as provided in Statute 775.082 or by a fine of not more than $5,000, or by both imprisonment and a fine.  Pinellas and other Florida counties are putting the welfare of animals above that of human beings, and this is in the United States of America – not some third-world country.  These encampments could possibly be among the most egregious human rights violations in the developed countries of the world.
  • A quote by University of California Santa Barbara Black Studies Professor Terrance Wooten:  “We say we are going to end homelessness in the nation, but we are creating a permanently unhouseable category of humans.”

 

Contact information for Florida Legislators:

 

Florida Representative and Email Addresses

 

Florida Senators and Email Addresses

 

Some of the research showing the negative effects of homelessness:

 

Some of the research showing residency restrictions are ineffective:

  • Why Maryland does not have residency restrictions – because evidence shows that residency restrictions do NOT help to prevent sexual offenses from occurring because the victims and the offenders, in most situations, know each other. (Maryland Department of Public Safety & Correctional Services, “Sex Offender Registry FAQs”, see question 15) https://www.dpscs.state.md.us/onlineservs/sor/frequently_asked_questions.shtml
  • “There is no research to support residence restrictions as effective in reducing sexual recidivism. The Minnesota Department of Corrections concluded in one study that ‘during the past 16 years, not one sex offender released from a Minnesota Correctional Facility has been re-incarcerated for a sex offense in which he made contact with a juvenile victim near a school, park, or daycare center close to his home.’”  (“Residency Restrictions for Sexual Offenders in Minnesota:  False Perceptions for Community Safety”, 2016)  MnATSA-Residency-Restrictions-2016.pdf
  • “Residency restrictions have not accomplished the goals that politicians have promised they would but have caused collateral consequences that can actually make society worse off.” (Boston College Journal of Law & Social Justice, “No Place to Call Home: Rethinking Residency Restrictions for Sex Offenders”, Gina Puls)  No Place to Call Home: Rethinking Residency Restrictions for Sex Offenders (bc.edu)
  • In Broward County, 27.6% of registrants are homeless, and in Miami-Dade, 28.2% are homeless, with residency restrictions being the main obstacle in finding stable housing. OPPAGA-Report-21.pdf  (pages 25-26)  https://oppaga.fl.gov/Documents/Reports/21-10.pdf

 

 Some of the research showing the low sexual recidivism rates:

  • In June of 2021 the American Law Institute (ALI), probably the most honored non-governmental law reform organization in the country, which includes top federal appeals judges, along with law professors and other legal experts, proposed major changes to the state sex offense registries.  One reason cited was that research shows a relatively low sexual recidivism rate after being caught and serving time in prison.  (See page 484 of the report.)
  • Also on page 484, footnote 23 of the ALI report is found: “as few as 5.3% [of sex offenders] re-offend within three years, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, as opposed to rates in the 65% to 80% range for drug offenders and thieves.” (Stuart A. Scheingold et al., Sexual Violence, Victim Advocacy, and Republican Criminology: Washington State’s Community Protection Act (1994), 28 LAW & SOC’Y REV. 729, 743) (American Law Institute, June 2021)  
  • The U. S. Department of Justice May of 2019 Recidivism Report found that released inmates in 30 states, whose most serious offense was rape or sexual assault, were arrested at a rate of 7.7% for rape or sexual assault over the 9-year period from 2005 to 2014.  That means that 92.3% did NOT re-offend.  This study only considered the most violent of sex crimes.  When all sexual offenses are included, the rate is lower. (Recidivism of Sex Offenders Released from State Prison:  9-Year Follow-Up (2005-14))  https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/rsorsp9yfu0514.pdf
  • Karl Hanson, one of the leading researchers in the field of risk assessment and treatment for people who have committed a sex offense, compiled data from many different research studies on re-offense rates for people on the sex offense registry and found the following to be true:  The lifetime sexual re-offense rate is anywhere from 10% to 30%, depending on which study you use, with the larger studies having the lower rates.  (Karl Hanson, Connecticut’s One Standard of Justice January 2021 Webinar: “Sex Offender Recidivism Risk Not What You Think”)  https://youtu.be/Hnf3bmoPLx4 – start at 19 minutes
  • “This study examined the extent to which sexual offenders present an enduring risk for sexual recidivism over a 20-year follow-up period. Using an aggregated sample of 7,740 sexual offenders from 21 samples, the yearly recidivism rates were calculated using survival analysis. Overall, the risk of sexual recidivism was highest during the first few years after release, and decreased substantially the longer individuals remained sex-offense-free in the community. This pattern was particularly strong for the high-risk sexual offenders. Whereas the 5-year sexual recidivism rate for high-risk sex offenders was 22% from the time of release, this rate decreased to 4.2% for the offenders in the same static risk category who remained offense-free in the community for 10 years. The recidivism rates of the low-risk offenders were consistently low (1%-5%) for all time periods. The results suggest that offense history is a valid, but time-dependent, indicator of the propensity to sexually re-offend.”  (Karl Hanson, Andrew Harris, Leslie Helmus, David Thornton, “High-Risk sex offenders may not be high risk forever”)  https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24664250/
  • “According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), ‘sexual violence perpetrators are … at increased risk of perpetrating again.’ Not mentioned by the CDC, however, is that the risk is still quite low, with most criminal justice and community-based studies showing that people on the registry are rarely returned to prison for another sexual crime.
  • Also cited in the above study: “Furthermore, in New York, of the 11,898 registered sex offenders released from prison between 1985 and 2001, 251 (2.1%) were returned to prison for another sex crime. The Arizona Department of Corrections reported that between 1984 and 1998, the recidivism rate for sex offenders was 5.5%, and Ohio reported that sex offenders released from prison in 1989 had a 10-year recidivism rate of 8%. According to the US Department of Justice, registered sex offenders are the least likely class of criminals to re-offend, with 3.5% of registered sex offenders released from prison in 1994 being reconvicted for another sexual offense within 3 years of their release. Finally, Harris and Hanson found that the risk for recidivating decreases significantly over time, with most re-offenses occurring within 5 years of the original conviction.”  (Kelly Bonnar-Kidd, “Sexual Offender Laws and Prevention of Sexual Violence or Recidivism”)  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2820068/

 

Some of the research showing most future sex crimes are committed by people NOT on the registry:

  • “…most new sexually-based crimes are committed by someone not on the registry. In Ohio in 1999, 92% of those convicted of a sex offense against a child and 93% of those convicted of a sex offense against a teenager were first-time offenders.  Most recently, Sandler et al., in their analysis of the effectiveness of Megan’s Law in New York, reported that 96% of all new arrests for sexual crimes occurred among those without previous sexual crime convictions.”  (National Library of Medicine, “Sexual Offender Laws and Prevention of Sexual Violence or Recidivism”, Kelly K. Bonnar-Kidd, PhD, 2010)  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2820068/:

 

Some of the research showing that minors know their perpetrators approximately 93% of the time, i.e., they are not strangers:

 

Additional research can be found at:

https://floridaactioncommittee.org/press/articles-and-studies-containing-research/

Every call gets heard and tallied.  Every respectful conversation with a staffer is an excellent opportunity to change a mind about our community with someone who has direct contact with a lawmaker.  YOUR EFFORTS DO MAKE A DIFFERENCE!

 

2 Comments

  1. Love2ClearClouds on August 19, 2023 at 8:55 pm

    I’ve already been contacting all legislators, and Volusia, Miami and Pinellas commissioners about this, frequently. Repetition is how the CIA and CDC operates because repetition works so effectively. I send anywhere from 1 to maybe 4 emails a week. A few reps have responded personally instead of auto-responses and thanked me for letting them know what is going on. And I will continue till the registry is obliterated and my son is free.👌🏼

    If you’re curious to know how the mind really works and how to change your reality, how to master your thoughts and actions, your self-talk, there is a book that I am reading that literally would change the world if everyone read it and put into practice control of them selves.

    The Secret Science Behind Miracles,
    by Max Freedom Long 🤯

    And research Dr Joe Dispenza and Dr Bruce Lipton. They teach how thoughts and beliefs create your personality and that’s what creates your reality. It’s truly mindblowing knowledge that has intentionally been hidden from us by the false overlords.

    There are no “royal’ people. Only greedy, thieving control freaks bent on destruction and control. Just look at what they just did in Maui. Oprah recently bought 870 acres on that island adjacent to the burnt to a crisp land. It will be interesting to see if she picks up the rest at fire sale prices.

    Reply
    • Education on August 20, 2023 at 7:58 am

      Thank you for the information that you have shared with us. I agree with you 100% that repetition will be the key to our successes. I feel we have a great power in our numbers now that has yet to be unleashed. I am ready to see it unleashed.

      Interesting research came out on Aug 18: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/727028

      Reply

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