This past legislative session, a bill passed the Florida legislature that will bring two significant changes to the sex offender registration statute.

The first; it reduces the amount of time before a location is considered a “residence” from 5 to 3 days. That means; travel for a long weekend would necessitate reporting, where it previously wound not have.

The second; any violation of the registration laws, no matter how benign nor whether it was knowing or not, would carry a mandatory minimum sentence of six months probation with GPS monitoring. That means; if you fail to address a vaguely defined internet identifier or miss a 48-hour registration deadline because you could not make it on time, you’re automatically getting a minimum 6 month sentence with a GPS monitor.

These are both pretty harsh for something that is supposed to be “civil” and “non-punitive”. With the continuous piling on of new and harsher requirements virtually every year, the opportunity to make an unknowing misstep grows.

FAC wants to know what research the legislature considered before passing a bill containing these harsh sanctions. We also want to know what these legislator’s constituents thought of the bills. Were these laws passed based on empirical research and informed consideration or were they passed on the whim of their sponsor, without consideration of the facts?

A copy of the public information request is below:

PIR Request to Senate 05272018

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