this always struck me as stupid. Why does “residing” near a location translate into the increased likelihood that a crime will be committed there? A registrant cannot live within 1000 feet of XYZ but can work at an autobody shop across the street from a daycare? Children are present during school hours. People go home AFTER the work day (when children aren’t at schools and such). So “thank you” for making it harder for registrants to find stable lodging by keeping them away from places kids go to only during “school/park hours” LMAO!

Matt

There is a website that list all the companies who will hire ex-felons and many of them also hire sex offender felons. When my probation officer gave me a list, I was surprised what companies hired ex-offenders, including sex offenders. May not be the dream job but I took what I could when I was working.
I can no longer work due to permanent disability. Took me 3 years to get approved, and during that period I almost lost my house and drained my bank account.

Thanks Mark, you are a knowledgeable person and glad to have you on the team. I was one of the first batch of people in Florida to go onto the registry. All these decades later, here I am still on lifetime registration. And the higher ups keep trying to justify that the registry is not punishment. I cannot type that without laughing, or crying.

All that non-punishment expands every session to make the more non-punishment even worse for us. Freedom is not free but for us freedom is a pipe dream.

Cherokee Jack, you actually put your finger on something important. Children and families are not confined to parks, playgrounds, pools, and schools. They are at grocery stores, shopping centers, restaurants, malls, movie theaters, churches, sidewalks, community events, and virtually every other place where ordinary life occurs.
That raises a legitimate question about the rational basis and evidentiary foundation for drawing exclusion zones around certain locations. If the justification is simply that “children congregate there,” that rationale becomes difficult to distinguish from countless other places where children are routinely present. At some point the question has to become: What evidence demonstrates that excluding registrants from these particular geographic areas actually reduces offending or protects children, as opposed to simply creating increasingly large areas from which people are excluded?
Your observation also connects directly with the point I was making about Sera v. Zimmerman. Once government begins regulating where people may live, stand, travel, or otherwise be present based upon classifications of places, the accuracy, consistency, justification, and procedures behind those classifications become extremely important.
This is one of the areas I am presently researching in connection with several potential amicus curiae briefs that could be offered in support of the FAC litigation. I am working through the legislative history, the development of these restrictions over time, the asserted justifications for them, and the evidence—or sometimes apparent lack of evidence—supporting the assumptions on which they were enacted.
Comments like yours are useful because they identify the practical contradictions that can get lost when these laws are discussed only in statutory language. If the stated concern is proximity to children, but children are present throughout ordinary public life, government should be required to explain why these particular geographic boundaries are meaningful and why restricting liberty within them actually accomplishes the claimed public-safety purpose.
Keep raising those kinds of questions. They are exactly the questions that deserve serious examination rather than simply accepting that another restriction must be effective because somebody labeled it a “public safety” measure.

Mark

What is hilarious about this is, we cannot go to a park, near a school and many other things, places and locations. BUT, we can go to the store, kids go there and wander off sometimes, and many other places such as malls, fast food (They have public bathrooms) and just about everywhere there are people.

Alot of the things that happen to kids are more often from a relative, family member or a friend of the family. The stories about kids being kidnapped at stores etc, do happen but not as crazy as the news makes it out to be.

Concerned

What is funny, most of the neighbors tolerated me and some even became friends. The only one that had an issue was the power-hungry HOA president. I have owned three homes in my lifetime and the last two (Including the one I live at now) were not HOA and will never have one again even if off the registry.
Even if you are not on the registry, there are horror stories about some HOAs having power trips against everyone. I have heard stories of someone not mowing their grass when it didn’t even need mowing but got a warning anyway, or a kid’s bike sitting overnight in the front yard.

I get some of the same responses not being in an HOA anymore but since we do not have one, all they can do is stir things up or move. I seem to have great magical powers because without even speaking, I seem to be able to make people move without doing nothing. Here is a tip, if you do not like it, maybe look up the registry before you buy somewhere because I am not moving.

I have lived under a HOA for many years. At some point, my neighbors received a notification.

But no matter. My neighbors are neighborly to me, and I am neighborly to them.

Your comment raises other important questions about HOA’s. How can we prevent HOA’s from becoming hostile toward our presence and erode our rights to live and enjoy the community? I’m in a new HOA and want to prevent this from happening while I have a chance.

The facts alleged in Sera expose a problem that becomes increasingly serious as registry restrictions expand: government may not only enforce the restriction, but create a regulatory mechanism through which the factual predicates determining where that restriction applies can themselves expand.

Brevard County, Florida provides a striking real-world example. Its Code actually establishes a “Business Self-Certification Registry.” Under § 74-102.5, a private business used for recreational purposes and where children regularly congregate may voluntarily self-certify that it falls within the County’s definition of a “park.” Those qualifying locations can then carry a 1,000-foot buffer-zone consequence for registrants.

Think about that alongside Sera.

Sera alleged that his proposed residence was rejected because of a daycare that did not actually exist as represented, and that only after he challenged that assertion was “Hollys Daycare LLC” registered as a business.

Brevard County has gone a remarkable step further by actually constructing a governmental mechanism through which private businesses may voluntarily place themselves into a registry used to identify locations carrying exclusion-zone consequences.

And the due-process problem becomes even more apparent when you read the County’s own disclaimer. Brevard says it will attempt to ensure that the information in its registry is accurate and complete, but expressly disclaims any guarantee of its accuracy or completeness. The ordinance places the ultimate determination of whether the private business qualifies as a “park” with law enforcement.

That raises some very serious constitutional questions.

Who independently verifies that the business actually qualifies? What does “children regularly congregate” objectively mean? What evidence establishes that fact? When does the 1,000-foot restriction legally attach? What notice does an affected citizen receive when a private business enters the registry? What procedure exists to challenge an erroneous designation before someone’s liberty is affected? And what happens when the business closes, changes its activities, relocates, or simply ceases satisfying the definition?

Most importantly: How can government demand precise compliance from the regulated citizen—backed by serious consequences—while simultaneously disclaiming the accuracy and completeness of the very geographic information upon which compliance may depend?

This is why the Sera allegations should concern people well beyond the parole context. A geographic restriction assumes that its triggering locations objectively exist, satisfy ascertainable legal criteria, and can reliably be identified. Once private actors can initiate a process that potentially changes the restricted geography surrounding people’s homes, procedural safeguards become more important, not less.

And this illustrates the larger problem with the continuing expansion of registration laws. Every additional geographic restriction, reporting requirement, classification, deadline, or prohibited activity creates another factual determination upon which government can restrict liberty—and another opportunity for arbitrary or erroneous enforcement.

There is a profound difference between a legislature saying, “You may not reside within 1,000 feet of a park,” and constructing a regulatory system in which the affected citizen must determine what qualifies as a park, which private businesses have voluntarily sought that designation, whether they actually satisfy the statutory definition, when that designation became effective, whether the government’s information is accurate, and how to challenge it before liberty is restricted.

The more intrusive the regulatory scheme becomes, the more important procedural due process becomes—not less.

And when getting that equation wrong can determine where someone is permitted to live or just be in the vicinity of, the constitutional question is no longer merely whether the registry carries the label “civil.” The question becomes whether government has constructed a system of continuing restraints without procedures adequate to protect the liberty those restraints increasingly invade.