FAC Weekly Update 2025-04-28-SO Residency Restrictions (SORR)

Recording #306.  Dear Members and Advocates,

We have to do something about Sex Offender Residency Restrictions (SORR).

A society that is characterized by suffering, oppression, and a general state of misery, is referred to as “Dystopian.”  So in a dystopian move last year, Florida passed legislation that effectively criminalized homelessness. Starting this past October, sleeping in any public space became a criminal offense.

Florida already holds the unfortunate distinction of having the highest number of homeless registered citizens in the country, a direct result of stringent residency restrictions that began in this state and spread, like dominoes, across the country.

Probation officers, recognizing the lack of compliant housing, have historically directed individuals to secluded areas like woods or under bridges to set up tents. But now, even this meager solution became illegal, causing individuals to violate probation, resulting in incarceration, only to be released into the same, impossible situation.

But the concept that individuals cannot stay near schools, parks, playgrounds or daycare centers between the hours of 10PM to 6AM, when schools, parks, playgrounds and daycare centers are closed anyhow, was a stupid idea to begin with.

Local governments and sheriffs across Florida seem to wear their gerrymandering of parks, schools, and “child safety zones” like a badge of honor, proudly boasting that they’ve created communities where no registered citizen can legally reside. In South Florida, the problem is particularly acute: in Miami-Dade County, 97% of all housing is off-limits to registrants, leaving bridges and isolated encampments as the only option.

In October 2024, the Office of Program Policy Analysis and Government Accountability (OPPAGA) published a report showing approximately one-third of registered sexual offenders in Miami-Dade County were homeless. That percentage has steadily increased since Sex Offender Residency Restrictions were enacted there 20 years ago. If nothing is done, that percentage will continue to increase every year as more people get added to the list and none come off (in Florida, registration is lifetime). In fact, since whatever available housing that once existed was grabbed, that percentage is increasing at an even faster rate.

This past week, Clewiston Florida in Hendry County, aligned with the state’s punitive trend. The city council passed an ordinance increasing the residency restriction from 1,000 to 2,500 feet.

Politicians used to argue that these restrictions were passed in order to make children safer, but that has been proven false. In the face of a total lack of empirical evidence supporting the effectiveness of residency restrictions in preventing sexual offenses, law enforcement officials are now openly acknowledging that these laws merely serve to exclude individuals forced to register from their communities.

In Clewiston, Police Chief Tom Lewis stated that the city’s new ordinance is intended to send a message to sex offenders that they are “really not welcome here”. Similarly, in Hereford Texas, Police Chief Landon Swan explained that by applying a 2,000-foot restriction around various locations, the city can “cover almost the entire town,” deterring sex offenders from moving into the area.

These statements suggest a shift from the purported goal of public safety to a strategy aimed at banishment.

This approach of legislated homelessness creates a paradox for registrants, who are barred from homeless shelters due to their status and now face criminal penalties for sleeping in public spaces. You are not legally permitted to live anyplace, yet you are not legally permitted to have nowhere to live!

Such policies not only fail to enhance public safety but exacerbate homelessness, hinder reintegration efforts, increase recidivism and make the public less safe.

These developments underscore a troubling pattern: policies that prioritize exclusion over rehabilitation, punishment over reintegration, and political showmanship over public safety.

In order to survive strict scrutiny in a challenge to legislation, the government must show that the law; (1) serves a compelling governmental interest (2) is narrowly tailored and (3) uses the least restrictive means to achieve its goal. So we must then ask, is the purpose of preventing a class of former offenders from living anyplace a “compelling governmental interest”?  And are these lifetime residency restrictions “narrowly tailored” if they are applied to everyone in this category irrespective of actual risk?  Finally, is the practice of banishment the “least restrictive means”?

It is clearly time for the courts to revisit these questions.

Sincerely,

The Florida Action Committee