(Weekly Update #165)
Dear Members and Advocates,
The St Lucie County Sheriff’s Department and the US Marshals Service reported some great results from a two-week joint initiative dubbed “Operation Watchful Eye”… More than 97% of persons forced to register were found to be compliant and the few that were not, had benign technical violations! The results proved that “Watchful Eye” was an unnecessary waste of two weeks and two agencies’ time and the public should know that people on the registry are overwhelmingly compliant and have a very low risk of re-offense.
Ok… so yes, that was the outcome of Operation Watchful Eye, but of course that’s not the way the Law Enforcement Agencies spun the story. The headline read, “Compliance checks of sex offenders yield more than a dozen arrests in St. Lucie County” and, of course, was accompanied by a scary press conference. But when you dissect the information disclosed, you’ll learn that sixteen of the 555 registrants were arrested. 16 out of 555 is 2.8%. That leaves 97.2% found to be compliant!
OK, again… so yes, if Operation Watchful Eye rescued just one kid from abduction or solved a single sex crime, there would be something to brag about. “If it saves one child”, right? But of course no kids were rescued and no actual sex crimes solved. As the article continues, “The most common charge during this operation, and during the arrest phase, was failure to report a change of address or failure to report a change to the Department of Motor Vehicles with regard to a motor vehicle”.
What’s crazier is Detective Daniel Campbell described the operation as “… a swarm of people, detectives, in conjunction with U.S Marshals Service, forming teams where we go out and we just hit a whole bunch at one time”! Are you kidding me? A “swarm” of county deputies and federal agents spent two weeks busting people for “technical violations”? Things that would be non-crimes, but for someone being on the registry. It’s like the Navy sending in the SEALs to check for expired parking meters! Is it really necessary and is it really worthy of the press conference or the misleading headline?
Ordinarily, I wouldn’t waste a Weekly Update mocking another of these silly “Operations”, but just last month one of our members submitted a member submission describing how nine (yes, 9) local and federal law enforcement officers showed up in swat gear at the home that she shares with her husband (who is a registrant but who also is 80 years old and suffers with dementia). Recalling the “operation” from her perspective, as she described it, made my blood boil as I read Detective Cambell’s description.
Knowing that this lady, who is one of the sweetest people I know, was the one who had to welcome this “swarm” of officers that showed up at her doorstep at 9:30PM, makes me sick. The trauma that I know it caused her, contrasted with the insipid results that these operations consistently yield, makes me sicker. People need to know the truth. We need to do more to call out the law enforcement agencies who mislead the public and the news outlets who publish this BS!
I would love to see an op-ed exposing these operations for the money they waste and the damage they do. Better yet, I’d like another news outlet to feature an investigative report to present the true cost/benefit of them. Perhaps, if someone you care about was the unnecessary target of these gestapo tactics, you can forward this week’s update to a journalist?
Sincerely,
The Florida Action Committee
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SOME HEADLINES FROM THIS WEEK
International Megan’s Law – Travel issues becoming more prevalent for registrants.
In recent months we’ve seen an increase in members reporting difficulty traveling internationally. We’re also seeing countries that formerly admitted persons required to register, now turning them away. Just last month a member was denied entry into Greece, a country…
A new study put out by the Federal Bureau of Justice Statistics, the United States’ primary source for criminal justice statistics, supports that notion that more than 9 out of 10 sexual assaults are committed by someone known to the victim. The study aggregates data…
NJ: Another state says you can’t move the finish line!!! Great news.
New Jersey is another in the line of State Supreme Courts to say the legislature can’t move the finish line.and impose new burdens for past crimes. Below is a link to the decision, but below that is a very informative quote from it….
Apple’s plan to scan phones for child abuse worries privacy advocates
Apple for years has focused on adding new programs to its phones, all designed to make life easier. Its systems scan emails for new calendar appointments, and its Siri voice assistant suggests to call friends on their birthdays. But Apple’s latest feature is focused…
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I wonder if these arrests that are made for FTR during these compliance are considered and ranked on the recidivism statistics side of things? In my opinion, they should not be considered recidivism. In my mind, recidivism or re-offend means to commit another sex offense. Not a bs standard the registry requires. If they are considered recidivism then the recidivism statistics need to be addressed as well. Sounds to me like some tomfoolery going on towards the community. Then again in today’s day and age only fear mongering and dramatic (often time misinformation) stories get high ratings on news and media outlets. Just like when I was deployed to Iraq 03′-05′ under the presumption that the Saddam regime had a stockpile of WMD’s. Which we never found a hoard of WMDs, especially not how the media spun the story. We found some old, out dated, corroded up chemical weapons but nothing in a massive scale.