Laws intended to provide the public with the whereabouts of sexual predators have backfired in many cases.

Penniless ex-felons often are forced into homelessness, creating unanticipated hazards for the very citizens the laws were created to protect.

These laws, which prevent sex offenders from living in close proximity to schools and other places, have exploded in recent decades. At the same time, more offenders are wandering the streets as they find fewer places that meet the stringent restrictions.

In turn, homeless sexual offenders may present dangers for a community blind to where they actually reside.

FAILURE IS INEVITABLE

“This is a system that’s designed to fail,” says Allison DeFoor, a prison chaplain and former member of FSU’s Project on Accountable Justice. “And it runs so counter to what you’re trying to do. Law enforcement is supposed to know where these people are.”

The problem becomes more acute in some counties such as Duval and Nassau, which have passed even stricter residency requirements for sexual-offense ex-felons. There are no studies that show residency restrictions actually reduce repeat offenses.

In fact, housing limitations for sexual offenders and predators is the most significant barrier for people emerging from prison, according to a survey by the Center for Effective Public Policy. It’s much more challenging to find housing for sex offenders than for other offenders.

The housing problem is even more dire as nonprofits that traditionally provide housing for people coming out of prison, such as homeless shelters, aren’t workable since they may also house children.

Other nonprofits, such as Operation New Hope, which does a fantastic job in Jacksonville helping felons reintegrate into the community, does not work with sexual offenders or predators.

Only the Jacksonville Re-entry Center provides help with housing, but that’s on a limited short-term basis.

HOUSING COMES FIRST

And when a released sexual offender or predator has nowhere to live, it leads to a domino effect of problems, says Kurt Bumby, director of the Center for Sex Offender Management, a project run by the Center for Effective Public Policy that provides guidance on how to best manage sex offenders.

Without an address, it’s harder for ex-offenders to secure employment and even services or treatment. It’s also harder for law enforcement or the public to keep track of them, creating potential safety issues.

Housing is also restricted by an offender’s inability to pay. Sexual felons who personally have money or a relative or friend to support them can usually find housing.

But for the ex-offenders who have no money, housing is often impossible to secure, given the legal restrictions.

Financial aid, such as Social Security, can often take months to get reinstated after an ex-felon’s release from prison. The limited for-profit housing that exists in Duval County for these ex-offenders doesn’t give breaks based on a person’s inability to pay.

“If you don’t have any kind of money, we won’t take you,” says Donald Bell, the manager of Southeast New Start Transitional Housing in Jacksonville.

“A lot of people can’t afford it.”

Sexual predators, because they usually were convicted of more serious crimes, have stricter restrictions on where they can live and so have more difficulty finding housing. Duval and Nassau counties have enacted restrictions beyond state restrictions.

Yet research shows that stable housing is positively related to lower recidivism rates for all ex-felons, including sexual offenders. Recidivism rates for sexual offenders and predators are cut significantly when they have safe and stable housing.

Because so many sex offenders and predators are unable to find housing, ragtag camps where they can live have been snugged into woods and under bridges across the state. Many of them, like the sexual predator written about on this page yesterday, are simply dropped off on the sides of the street by frustrated probation officers.

“(Drop-offs) are not unusual. It happens all the time,” says Gail Colletta, president of a Florida nonprofit that advocates for such offenders. “They can’t find housing anywhere.”

Elliott Park agrees.

He worked for the Department of Corrections in Jacksonville for 33 years and retired a year ago as the chief probation officer for the Department of Corrections in the 4th District.

He remembers that sidewalk drop-offs of released sexual offenders occurred “fairly frequently. It’s very difficult to find housing if somebody didn’t have money coming out.”

A camp under the Julia Tuttle Causeway in Miami caused an uproar in 2009, becoming so notorious that even today it has a Wikipedia page.

But that camp wasn’t unusual.

Camps are scattered across the state, from downtown Orlando to a patch of woods near Fort Myers.

Just two years ago, an enclave of 13 registered sex-offense felons was discovered off Beaver Street in Jacksonville.

The problem with these camps or the idea of transient sex offenders and predators is that is it more difficult to get needed support services to ex-felons who have no permanent address, and it’s also more difficult to keep a community safe.

Something needs to be done to provide humane conditions for housing offenders — and to create solid social policy to keep our neighborhoods safe.

“We’re not getting what we need,” Bumby says, “and that’s safer communities and lower recidivism.”

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