FAC Makes Public Information Request to Florida Senate Regarding Sex Offender Bill
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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What you should be asking is if these punishments are reasonable under U.S. v. Kantor
The legislature isn’t required by the state or federal constitution to rely on empirical evidence, and they certainly don’t have an account of what their constituents think beyond a what has amounted to a Tonkin Resolution to “protect the children.”
Good one Gail. I doubt they can even produce 100 pages of any kind of public records!
I know when the first reg bill went threw it had a part that required a report be done on if the reg worked or not but after time they said they didn’t have enough facts to do the report as the reg hadn’t been in force long enough ,is there some way to get them to do that required report now that it has been in force for years?
Bill Nelson is federal. These are State laws that were passed.
Career politicians have to stay relevant and justify their positions with the only thing they know how to do: Pass laws……which in itself, does nothing to contribute anything valuable to society, other than tell people what to do or not to do or else be punish for it. No different than a parent grounding their teenager for breaking the house rules.
You described it perfectly.
Political pseudoscience described into a single paragraph. Nice!
You are wrong the laws serve a purpose. They create an imaginary jail very vivid, creating depressive feelings in good citizens, and feelings on anger and hate in most of us. Once I wrote a letter to the surgeon general who had just written an article about depression in America, and I laid down for him. I told him if he wants to do something to cure this problem to work on striking laws.
Other than county constitutional officers, there aren’t supposed to be “career politicians” in the state system of Florida. Of course, that hasn’t stopped people like our old pal Victor Christ from playing musical chairs with the electoral system. I am sure that Lauren Book is making a long list of positions that she can run for when she terms out of the State Senate.
How did bill nelson vote on these?
I believe it was passed unanimously
This was addressed to the Florida Senate. Bill Nelson is a US Senator from Florida. Nelson couldn’t have voted on this.