I think a person from Florida be better for this position

Derek, since you’ve been willing to let your face be the voice for others, has FAC/you considered the possibility of providing regular video commentary on the registry and any new laws that are proposed, or passed? Who knows, it may get picked up by the local FL stations once they know they have a reliable source for the opposing view.

If there were some free AI tools that could be used, I would even host a channel to bring truth to the issue, minus my identity, voice and face.

JJJJ – I feel your pain. I was unjustly persecuted by my neighborhood recently, and this is a high income community, at that. You would think better educated people would also have more wisdom and better morals, but that does not appear to be the case.

Your entrepreneurship is valuable anywhere. Given everything against people in FL, it may be that you need to fight this battle from safe ground, rather than ground zero. Truly, the level of persecution in your state has risen to the degree that a modern day exodus may be in order.

What surprises me the most is the speed and severity with which these changes are coming. In my state, which has been historically more balanced on this issue, the laws have been stable for the better part of 20 years. In this past year, however, dozens of bills were proposed, and some advanced to a worrisome degree. We need to watch the signs of the times and pray, and if necessary, take action.

The social and legal landscape for individuals on sex offender registries is tightly governed by a pervasive culture of fear and systemic isolation that effectively silences advocacy against constitutional overreach. Public registries broadcast highly sensitive personal data, such as photos and home addresses, leaving families acutely vulnerable to vigilantism, online exposure, and social ostracism (Benevolence Farm). This public vulnerability is further compounded by hyper-complex, time-intensive compliance frameworks where minor reporting errors carry immediate, severe felony penalties (Mitchell Hamline School of Law). Consequently, registrants face a paralyzing choice between enduring civil rights violations or risking public exposure by filing lawsuits. As one community member from Ohio shared, “If I file a lawsuit to challenge my restrictions, my face is back on the local news… I have to accept the violation of my rights just to keep my family safe.” A participant from Texas echoed this sentiment, emphasizing that “compliance means absolute silence” because registry officers hold absolute power to disrupt lives over trivial technicalities.
This culture of silence is continually reinforced by the systematic passage of reactionary, “one-incident” legislation that relies on public emotion rather than empirical risk data. Sex Offender Registration and Notification (SORN) frameworks expanded exponentially following federal mandates driven by high-profile, isolated tragedies (Cato Institute). Because these legislative sweeps function as a blunt political tool, they flatten all registrants into a singular category of extreme risk, entirely ignoring low-risk or decades-old offenses. Peer-reviewed research confirms that this lack of differentiation inflicts blanket systemic disadvantages across the entire registered population (PubMed). As a result, non-offending individuals who have maintained decades of stability face severe housing, employment, and financial hardships that actively derail their reintegration (Taylor & Francis Online). Highlighting this dynamic, a California registrant noted, “Every time an awful crime happens on the other side of the country, lawmakers pass a new blanket law that treats me like an active threat,” while a Georgia forum member added that lawmakers leverage “one terrible headline to justify punishing 100,000 people who had absolutely nothing to do with it.”
Florida serves as the contemporary epicenter of this punitive, reactionary legal trend, most notably illustrated by the parallel measures of House Bill 45 and Senate Bill 212 (The Florida Senate; Florida House of Representatives). These pieces of legislation were fast-tracked after a local court ruled that a community swimming pool did not meet the existing statutory definition of a “park” where a registrant was legally barred from living nearby (FOX 13 Tampa Bay). In response, the legislature implemented an aggressive 1,000-foot residency ban encompassing all public swimming pools, splash pads, spas, and water recreation areas. The Florida Action Committee has strongly warned that overlaying these new “pool bubbles” onto existing baseline restrictions makes large metropolitan areas completely uninhabitable, directly triggering a severe homelessness crisis among compliant citizens. Expressing the immediate human toll of this policy, a Florida resident stated, “If you map out every hotel pool, community splash pad, and public spa in this city, there are no legal places left to live. It’s state-mandated homelessness.”
Beyond immediate housing displacement, this new legal reality severely curtails daily mobility and fundamentally chills free speech. Under HB 45, registrants on community supervision are barred from working near or even visiting water recreation spaces without explicit prior approval, while law enforcement is granted broad authority to conduct warrantless arrests based on mere suspected “loitering.” Policy experts point out that such punitive measures persist despite conclusive data showing they fail to improve community public safety (Reason Foundation). The ultimate consequence is a total suppression of advocacy, as registrants remain too terrified to publicly contest these policies when stepping into the spotlight invites immense risk under an expanded felony framework. As summarized by a local Florida advocate, “How are we supposed to speak up against this law when the law itself makes it dangerous to step outside?” Ultimately, the convergence of social stigma, broad legislative retaliation, and aggressive surveillance ensures that the vast majority of successfully reintegrated citizens remain a silent, unprotected majority.
——————————
References
Benevolence Farm. “Let’s Talk About the Collateral Consequences of the Sex Offender Registry.” Benevolence Farm, benevolencefarm.org.
Cato Institute. “Do Sex Offender Registries Make Us Less Safe?” Cato Institute, cato.org.
Florida Action Committee. “Call to Action — Oppose HB 45 & SB 212.” Florida Action Committee, floridaactioncommittee.org.
Florida House of Representatives. Senate Bill 212. Florida House of Representatives, flhouse.gov.
FOX 13 Tampa Bay. “Florida Sex Offender Law Swimming Pool Rules Spark Debate.” FOX 13 Tampa Bay, fox13news.com.
Mitchell Hamline School of Law. “SORN Policy Brief.” Mitchell Hamline School of Law, mitchellhamline.edu.
PubMed. “Academic Studies on Registry Flattening and Disadvantage.” PubMed, nih.gov.
Reason Foundation. “Florida’s New Sex Offender Registrant Restrictions Will Not Improve Public Safety.” Reason Foundation, reason.org.
Taylor & Francis Online. “Housing, Employment, and Financial Hardships Study.” Taylor & Francis Online, tandfonline.com.
The Florida Senate. House Bill 45 (2026). The Florida Senate, flsenate.gov.

Thumbs up

we really need a like button 🙂

Thank you Derek for speaking up and saying something for all these years, to me it seems like it is slowly getting easier to speak up and out sort of like when people come out of the closet as im sure it is and was scarier then hell and was a lot more so years ago weather speaking up and trying to educate the people about these laws and the brain washing the government did to people. IT TOOK AND TAKES COURAGE NOT TO BE AFRAID and that’s what people do when backed into a corner shoved and pushed hard enough. you realized early on that even if you stayed quiet and not say nothing and scared to live as thinking that speaking out and standing up will put you in the limelight and it surely did the Florida’s own professional drunk and the professional victim that continues to profit.

It amazes me of how you leaned and manage to stay calm you are over the years as you discuess these BS Laws.

i know years ago we talked a few times and i was scared to be in the spotlight. now i to have been pushed to far. just have been wrongly arrested for the 3rd time because a cop felt insulted i guess and he without proper investigating and shoddy police work exploited what could be deemed at as a flaw in the law that police is exploiting! this was the 3rd wrong arrest in 20 years and i had enough. if i cant find a attorney that specializes in section 1983 i will attempt it myself! i been wronged to many times and staying quiet and not being in the spotlight or squeaky wheel will just get me falsely arrested again! WELL, I HAD ENOUGH AND WILL BE IN THE SPOTLIGHT SPEAKING OUT! Derek, WERE YOU AWARE THAT IN Florida IF SOMEONE LIES OR MISREPRESENTS THEIR AGE IN PERSON, AT A CLUB OR BAR, ON A DATING / HOOK UP ADULT SITE YOU CAN’T USE THAT AS A DEFENSE IN FLORIDA!

in closing i just want to say awesome job staying calm and controlling your anger and emotions during this interview!

Hello:

I am an ex-sex offender (I haven’t offended since I was arrested over 20 years ago) who is forced to register on the Florida sex offender registry. I am forced to undergo an intrusive interrogation at the local county jail every 3 months. I spent about 10 years in Florida prison.

I am very sorry for my crimes. But, I have paid for them in full; I have completed all of my prison sentence, probation, fines, fees, restitution and court costs. I have rebuilt my life, and I am now a successful business executive. I own multiple rental properties and have a gorgeous home with land in Southwest Florida. I was released in October 2016 homeless with a $100 reloadable Visa card. No friends – no relatives. They had all turned their back on me because of the terrible crimes I committed.

I worked very hard towards my rehabilitation, both during my prison sentence and after. I have known and associate regularly with quite a few ex-sex offenders. We all want to move on with our lives with quiet dignity; we have healed and moved on. We wish our unfortunate victims peace and healing. We cannot change the past, so we choose to move forward.

But we are being systematically legislated back into prison. So many of us are incurring brand new third degree felonies because of clerical issues like forgetting to renew one’s driver license or to timely register a vehicle. Yes! To us, these are third degree felonies!

In my opinion, this type of legislation (the pool ban) is based on a sick, atrocious hatred. It is rabid and venomous!

I feel strongly that this hatred is co-sponsored (fostered) by the federal and state governments of the United States!

This hatred (like most other types of hatred) is based on fear.

In my opinion, we, in the USA, must create a law that outlaws the systematic persecution of any single group. We must somehow stop the hatred!

We must somehow temper the fear of us!

Most ex-sex offenders are just like me – they have rebuilt and moved on from their past.

Ten years after my sentence was fully served, I got a letter in the mail from a Lee County judge informing me that a lawsuit had been decided against me. I was now to be deemed a “sexual predator” instead of a “sexual offender”. This was the first that I had heard of the matter. The suit was filed under the original criminal case number from 2006! I didn’t even receive a court summons so that I could speak on my own behalf! I receive those daily emails from the USPS that show what is going to be delivered that day, and they provided incontrovertible proof that I was never served (as the court claimed) by USPS. Yet, when I hired a lawyer and paid $5000.00 to assert this, the judge simply waved me off without comment. I WAS TRIED IN ABSENTIA in the USA! But because of this rabid hatred, I was denied even my day in court!

We are this nation’s current boogeyman. We are the hated and feared “untouchables”. At the risk of hyperbole: We are the new Jews!

This hatred is co-sponsored (fostered) by the federal and state governments of the US!

This hatred (like most other types of hatred) is based on fear.

In my opinion, we, in the USA, must create a law that outlaws the systematic persecution of any group. We must somehow stop the hatred!

We must somehow temper their fear of us!

Please everyone share this story with media in your town or city right now!