FAC Weekly Update 2025-08-27-Asking for Your Voice

Weekly update for August 27, 2025. This is recording number 324.

Dear Members and Advocates,

Each morning a FAC volunteer scans media headlines from across the world to find relevant news to share with our readers. Yesterday, there were a bunch on the same story. The headlines on Pennsylvania’s ABC 27 read, “Florida sex offender arrested after receiving stolen property in Lancaster County” and on Fox 43; “Florida sex offender arrested in Lancaster County for reportedly stealing U-Haul”.  At least half a dozen posts on this same event, all with similar headlines about a “Florida Sex Offender”.

Naturally we click the stories to search for the connection to our population. Did he use a stolen U-Haul to abduct a kid? Should we expect a bill in next legislative session preventing registrants from renting box trucks? But there was no connection. A person stole a rental truck. Period. True, the person happened to have been convicted of a sexual offense more than a decade ago, but despite every article mentioning the man was a registrant, no article made any connection between the two unrelated facts. Although his registration is the first thing mentioned, that designation had absolutely nothing to do with the crime at hand.

Think about it: you don’t see stories framed as, “Florida Drunk Driver arrested for insider trading” or “Georgia Thief gets caught jaywalking.” Yet with registered sex offenders, the label sticks – forever – and it’s thrown out there to make the story seem far more heinous even when it’s completely unrelated. Cars get stolen every day, I’m sure that pretty often people who have stolen cars in the past get caught stealing cars again. But that’s never newsworthy. The media just loves to throw the “Florida Sex Offender” headline out there to prime readers to view the individual as defined by their past, rather than considering their current actions in context. Are these stations so desperate for clicks that they need to distort the news coverage in order to get readers?

So here’s our first ask for this week: Whenever you see the unnecessary use of the “Sex Offender” label in a headline or story, post a comment on that story asking why it was included. What’s the implication here? Are they trying to suggest that registrants are inherently U-Haul thieves? Challenge the stigma. Demand fair, unbiased reporting. If news outlets are called out on it enough times, they might think twice before putting it out there.

And here’s our second ask: As those of you who regularly read our forum know, a significantly important case was just remanded from the 11^th Circuit Court of Appeals back to the Middle District Court. The case is Clements v. Secretary, Department of Corrections. At issue in the appeal was whether Sex Offender Residency Restrictions (those laws that banish people on the registry from living within a certain exclusion zone from places such as schools, parks, day cares, etc.) are restrictive enough to constitute “custody”. The Appellate Court sent Louis Clement’s case back to the lower court for further examination of that specific issue. FAC is supporting the efforts of Mr. Clements’ attorneys by collecting declarations from our members in Florida on how SORRs (Sex Offender Residency Restrictions) have impacted them. Were you prevented from moving in with family because of a SORR? Were you kicked out of a residence because of a SORR? Were you banished from a city or county because of a SORR? Did SORRs cause you to be homeless for a period of time? If the answer to any of these questions is YES, we want to hear from you and we could use your experiences to show the Court, through declarations, that SORRs being a component of registration, tip the scales from a simple “registration obligation” to such a harsh deprivation of liberty that its tantamount to being in confinement.

There is no expert witness out there that can offer the Court better insight into how debilitating residency restrictions truly are than you! Think about how many times you’ve heard a certain lobbyist stand before lawmakers or a courtroom and say “there’s plenty of places to live. These people are just lazy and don’t want to find them”. Well now is our opportunity to set the record straight and get the truth out there. Please help us by sending your experience with SORRs to [email protected] today! It costs you nothing but a few minutes of your time and it will have a very significant impact.

Sincerely,

The Florida Action Committee