Fort Lauderdale Votes to Remove School Bus Stops from Sex Offender Residency Restrictions
At last night’s City Commission meeting, the city of Ft. Lauderdale, Florida voted to remove school bus stops from the list of locations around which persons required to register as sex offenders could live.
The current ordinance (which included school bus stops in the exclusion zones) left less than one (1) percent of Ft. Lauderdale compliant for a registrant to live. There was practically nowhere in the city to live and the numbers demonstrated that.
As of May, 2019 there are 595 persons required to register in Ft. Lauderdale and 278 of them are transient. 46.7% of the sex offender population in Ft. Lauderdale is Homeless! And that number is growing rapidly because with people on the registry for life, there is zero attrition and more people being added to the list daily. Unless housing opportunities are made available the percentage of homeless will skyrocket.
With the removal of school bus stops, one percent of compliant housing would increase to approximately fifteen percent.The move was somewhat of a compromise because the proposal going into the city commission meeting yesterday was to roll the restriction back to the state’s 1000 feet, which would have left approximately thirty percent of the city compliant. Mayor Dean Trantalis expressed concern that rolling it back to 1000 feet would make the city attractive to sex offenders.
On one hand the action taken last night is a good first step and hopefully will offer some relief to the hundreds who are currently homeless. Assurance was given that if it doesn’t do enough they city can always revisit.
On the other hand, discussion over the amendment proposal was completely devoid of the important arguments; that residency restrictions don’t work, that they destabilize registrants and increase recidivism, that they make law enforcement’s job harder because registrants are more difficult to track, that they cause the homelessness that they complain of and they only govern where a registrant sleeps between 10PM and 6AM when children aren’t even in schools, parks or school bus stops and are therefore ridiculous!
I was present at the meeting last night and wavering between a sense of accomplishment and a sense of frustration. In the end, I’m resigned to the fact that this is how politics work and we’re better off moving the pendulum in the current direction than in the other. It gives us momentum with which to swing it farther. At the end of the day, there’s awareness that these SORRs are not working and at least there is dialogue and some movement.
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It is a start !
My personal belief is that they see “the writing on the walls” and are partially hopeful that if the make this concession they won’t be sued like other municipalities around the country and lose ALL of their crazy restrictions. Kind of a “stop-gap” measure.
The times, they seem to be a changing’.
So my question is this. If a registrant can not be at the address from 10 PM to 6 am how is this serving the public interest? Why can a registrant not buy a house where they want and just be gone from the address during the 10 to 6 time frame?
What Children are being protected between 10 at night and 6 in the morning. I am not sure of any schools, daycares and or parks that are open these hours.
It’s legal for a registrant to buy a house in a restricted area and live in it between the hours of 6 a.m and 10 p.m. Nothing in the residency restriction law serves the public interest.
If that is the case then it fails the 3rd and 4th prongs of Mendoza Martinez and under SCOTUS own litmus test should be struck down as it does not meet traditional aims of punishment and has no rational connection to non punitive punishment.
Good point!
” Mayor Dean Trantalis expressed concern that rolling it back to 1000 feet would make the city attractive to sex offenders. ”
Of course it will be attractive to sex offenders. It would be attractive to anyone who is living on the streets. Nobody wants to be homeless regardless of who you are or your background – a basic human necessity – Shelter. Now with the summer heat, rain and hurricane season, that necessity becomes more essential.
They should be the first to set an example and ban the residency restrictions 100% and show the rest of Florida how ineffective and dumb these ordinances are and how dumb the rest of Florida is for still keeping them. Its got to start somewhere.
Finally. Good news in FLORIDA.
I agree it’s a step in the right direction. Eventually the politicians themselves will see how ridiculous the entire registration is and requirements. Especially for a first time offender who has many years with no recidivism. So in the end let’s be thankful and consider it a win.
You give politicians a lot of credit. 🤔