Jackson County, Florida is considering enacting a Sex Offender Residency Restriction. According to this article, the county currently has a 1000 foot ordinance, which they are looking to increase to 2500 feet.
“Our whole goal is not to punish anyone, it’s just to make our community safer,” Jackson County Sheriff’s Office Sergeant Quinton Hollis said.
In fact, studies have shown that residency restrictions DO NOT make the communities safer and may even increase recidivism by destabilizing former offenders. SORRs were just declared to be punitive in the City of Ft. Lauderdale.
A meeting on the proposed change will be held on April 10, 2018 at 9:00 AM in the Jackson County Administration Building, 2864 Madison Street. Marianna, Florida 32448, Telephone: (850) 482- 9633
You can contact the commissioners through these links:
We are looking for a member or members who are in or near Jackson County, Florida, who can speak at the meeting and read FAC’s position statement. If you are able to, please contact [email protected].
Has anyone done any further investigation into Jackson county, florida sex offender restrictions? Everyone that speaks up or tries to live as much as a normal life as we can…. the officer mentioned just adds new charges on them , making up his own laws or lies & corruption 🙄
When will these people get it and stop with the fear and grandstanding tactics just to get reelected. They need to know they are hurting people not just the ex offender but his or her family as well. Homelessness Single Parent Homes Juvenile Delinquency all of these conditions are by product’s of SORR’S When will these people open their minds
Interesting that this criminal regime wants people who have shot children with guns to live next door to schools. Could these criminal regimes possibly have less credibility? They don’t even try to disguise their immoral, un-American witch hunt.
Well, at first read of the linked article, both the headline, “Possible ordinance would limit where sex offenders can live,” and first sentence, “Sex offenders and predators who move to Jackson County have no restrictions on where they can live, however, a proposed ordinance would require those individuals to abide by the county’s residency restrictions,” are bold-faced lies.
These opening words instill the fear into the community. Then, almost as an aside, the article states what it should have in the first sentence, “Right now, offenders and predators cannot live within 1,000 feet of a place where children regularly gather, like parks, schools, and bus stops.” Also, the headline should have read “Possible ordinance would FURTHER limit where sex offenders can live.”
Now they trot out the same tired excuse for doing this, “It’ll change the 1,000 foot rule to a 2,500 foot rule so it’ll provide a little more protection for our citizens, especially the children.” Ah, yes, for the children. And, they do not even consider SOs as being citizens.
The article also states that “Sheriff’s officials said Sneads and Grand Ridge both have similar ordinances.” I cannot confirm if either of these towns do with a cursory internet search. So, I can assume since these other backwoods towns have such ordinances, the county should have one as well.
It’s much easier to copycat a flawed ordinance or law than do the research on effectiveness and collateral damage. I am constantly amazed by the Civil War mentality that a vast majority of the South still has after over 150 years. So sad.
This tells you how absolutely clueless the Politicians that people elect are. They carry ZERO knowledge about what the hell they are legislating. They’re children in suits pretending to be ‘holy adult civil servants’. Pathetic. The current system of government needs to be vastly revamped, as we have too many idiots that have been entrusted with too much power. We need to pass a law requiring Legislators to a trust both sides of an issue and then present their case, not make up BS out of thin air based on how they feel that day.
Here is my updated version I just sent to Jackson Co.
I am writing you as a concerned citizen of the state of FL, and as an American living under the US Constitution in reference to noticing your proposed ordinance for increasing the Sex Offender Residency Restrictions in your county from 1000 feet to 2500 feet. In reference to this misguided policy, I would like the board to consider the following questions below:
1) Has the mayor and council members done their due diligence and researched this matter that would lead them to come to the conclusion to come up with such an ordinance?
2) And if they did do their research, what evidence are they pointing to that would lead them to propose such an ordinance?
Study after study shows that sex offenses happen mostly by people who KNEW the victim personally, and not just some random stranger off the street (a.k.a “stranger danger”). Furthermore, sex offenders have one of the LOWEST recidivism rates of any category of criminal. Also, it is further shown that residency restrictions (and ORDINANCES such as the one you’re proposing) actually do more to INCREASE recidivism for sex offenders rather than decrease it. The evidence I am sighting was found in a section from Wikipedia. However, there are TONS of more evidence out there on this issue, should one do a simple Google search:
From Wikipedia: “The vast majority of sexual offense victims are known to the offender — including friends, family, or other trusted adults such as teachers. This is contrary to media depictions of stranger assaults or child molesters who kidnap children unknown to them.[59] Thus, despite the public awareness of the whereabouts of convicted sex offenders, there has been little evidence to back the claim that mandatory registration has made society safer. According to ATSA, only in the states that utilize empirically derived risk assessment procedures and publicly identify only high risk offenders, has community notification demonstrated some effectiveness.[38][60] The majority of U.S states do not utilize risk assessment tools when determining ones inclusion on the registry, although studies have shown that actuarial risk assessment instruments, which are created by putting together risk factors found by research to correlate with re-offending, consistently outperform the offense based systems.[61]
Studies almost always show that residency restrictions increase offender’s recidivism rates by increasing offender homelessness and increasing instability in a sex offender’s life. According to a Department of Justice study, 5.3% of sex offenders who were released from prison in 1994 were arrested for a new sex offense after 3 years.[62] Robbers, arsonists and property crime committers (all of which have a recidivism rate of 60–70 percent after 3 years) were the most likely to re-offend group. Despite the public perception of sex offenders as having high recidivism, sex offenders had the second lowest recidivism rate, after only murderers. A later study done by the Department of Justice showed an even lower sex offender recidivism rate of about 2.1 percent after 3 years. However, since sex crimes are the most under-reported crimes,[63] whether or not the Department of Justice’s 5.3% sex offender recidivism rate is deceptively low is unclear. Recidivism rates only measure how many people return to prison or are arrested for a new offense and do not measure how many people actually commit a new criminal offense (some criminals commit new offenses after release from prison but do not get caught.) In the late 2000s, a study showed that Indiana sex offenders have recidivism of about 1.03% after 3 years.[64] Studies consistently show sex offender recidivism rates of 1–4% after 3 years, recividism is usually at about 5–10% after a long follow up (such as a 10–25 year follow up).”
So as you and the council members can see, ROBBERS, ARSONISTS, AND HOME INVADERS have a MUCH HIGHER chance of being more dangerous to your town, than the average sex offender.
3) So, with the evidence just presented to you, why then are you still proposing this ordinance? Is it because an “attorney advised you to do it?” Are you only proposing this ordinance because it is easy to score “political points” with the community by pretending to make them feel “safer”? Everyone wants to pick on the sex offenders even though there are literally almost 100 different ways to become a registered sex offender in Florida. Even an arrest for public urination will get you on the list. So are you considering each individual case for this ordinance, or just simply doing what everyone else does and just put a “blanket law” out there to cover every registered offender?
4) Has there been an extraordinary amount of sex offenders in your town causing mischief or grabbing kids off the streets that would cause you to have the need to create this ordinance? Are the currently registered sex offenders in your town making life for the citizens of Jackson County that unbearable?
5) And if you are going to propose such an ordinance for sex offenders, are you also proposing an ordinance to keep former drug offenders away from schools and parks as well? Are you going to propose an ordinance for those convicted of thefts to have to live 1000 feet away from banks and convenience stores?
Thank you for the time to re-consider your ridiculous and unconstitutional actions based on ACTUAL FACTS AND EVIDENCE rather than just because “a lawyer told me to do it” or because it is a popular thing to do with the public in your county. Similar actions in Miami-Dade county have rendered 250 registered offenders to be homeless and forced to live on the side of a railroad track. Is that safer for the community? Do you want to create such a homelessness problem in Jackson County? If not, then I would ask you to reconsider your proposal.
Have a great day
Excellent – thank you!
MJ..excellent n well written
Thank u
Shorten it up or nobody gonna read it.
OK then shorten it for me and then you send it with your name on it. The more we harass them maybe the less they’ll harass us. Just sayin
I love this! This is from a woman that is married to a man that was accused of being a sex offender. Because we had no money for proper legal reprenstation, my husband was convicted and now lives on the side of a road in Miami Dade. He, as well as many many are being treated worst than an animal. An animal gets better treatment than these people. The 2500 feet law sucks. Where are the politicians gonna house these people if they cannot live with their families because they live to close to schools, parks, daycares, etc. The system is broken. Something has to be done.
If anyone wants to use my email I sent to Vernon, FL, or any excerpt of it, please feel free to do so. It is listed below:
I am writing you as a concerned citizen of the state of FL, and as an American living under the US Constitution, in reference to the following article posted below, and would like to voice my vehement opposition to the proposed ordinance in your town:
http://www.wjhg.com/content/news/Ordinance-would-keep-sex-offenders-from-living-in-Vernon-476051283.html
I was unaware of the fact that we are still living in the medieval times here in America where the leader of a city or town can just stand up and make a declaration to banish a particular group of citizens for seemingly no apparent reason. I have a few questions that I would like the mayor and the town council to answer for me.
1) Has the mayor and council members done their due diligence and researched this matter that would lead them to come to the conclusion to come up with such an ordinance?
2) And if they did do their research, what evidence are they sighting that would lead them to propose such an ordinance?
Study after study shows that sex offenses happen mostly by people who KNEW the victim personally, and not just some random stranger off the street (a.k.a “stranger danger”). Furthermore, sex offenders have one of the LOWEST recidivism rates of any category of criminal. Also, it is further shown that residency restrictions (and ORDINANCES such as the one you’re proposing) actually do more to INCREASE recidivism for sex offenders rather than decrease it. The evidence I am sighting was found in a section from Wikipedia. However, there are TONS of more evidence out there on this issue, should one do a simple Google search:
From Wikipedia: “The vast majority of sexual offense victims are known to the offender — including friends, family, or other trusted adults such as teachers. This is contrary to media depictions of stranger assaults or child molesters who kidnap children unknown to them.[59] Thus, despite the public awareness of the whereabouts of convicted sex offenders, there has been little evidence to back the claim that mandatory registration has made society safer. According to ATSA, only in the states that utilize empirically derived risk assessment procedures and publicly identify only high risk offenders, has community notification demonstrated some effectiveness.[38][60] The majority of U.S states do not utilize risk assessment tools when determining ones inclusion on the registry, although studies have shown that actuarial risk assessment instruments, which are created by putting together risk factors found by research to correlate with re-offending, consistently outperform the offense based systems.[61]
Studies almost always show that residency restrictions increase offender’s recidivism rates by increasing offender homelessness and increasing instability in a sex offender’s life. According to a Department of Justice study, 5.3% of sex offenders who were released from prison in 1994 were arrested for a new sex offense after 3 years.[62] Robbers, arsonists and property crime committers (all of which have a recidivism rate of 60–70 percent after 3 years) were the most likely to re-offend group. Despite the public perception of sex offenders as having high recidivism, sex offenders had the second lowest recidivism rate, after only murderers. A later study done by the Department of Justice showed an even lower sex offender recidivism rate of about 2.1 percent after 3 years. However, since sex crimes are the most under-reported crimes,[63] whether or not the Department of Justice’s 5.3% sex offender recidivism rate is deceptively low is unclear. Recidivism rates only measure how many people return to prison or are arrested for a new offense and do not measure how many people actually commit a new criminal offense (some criminals commit new offenses after release from prison but do not get caught.) In the late 2000s, a study showed that Indiana sex offenders have recidivism of about 1.03% after 3 years.[64] Studies consistently show sex offender recidivism rates of 1–4% after 3 years, recividism is usually at about 5–10% after a long follow up (such as a 10–25 year follow up).”
So as you and the council can see, ROBBERS, ARSONISTS, AND HOME INVADERS have a MUCH HIGHER chance of being more dangerous to your town, than the average sex offender.
3) So, with the evidence just presented to you, why then are you still proposing this ordinance? Is it because an “attorney advised you to do it?” Are you only proposing this ordinance because “Bonifay and Chipley” also have such an ordinance? Being a copycat is hardly a reason to pass a law.
4) Has there been an extraordinary amount of sex offenders in your town causing mischief or grabbing kids off the streets that would cause you to have the need to create this ordinance? Are the 7 currently registered offenders in your town making life for the citizens of Vernon that unbearable?
5) And with such Hitler and Nazi-esque thinking being perpetrated by your town, would the leaders of your town like us to refer to them as “Heil Mayor” or Heil Councilman”? I was just wondering.
Thank you for the time to re-consider your ridiculous and unconstitutional actions based on ACTUAL FACTS AND EVIDENCE rather than just because “a lawyer told me to do it.” If you and other towns keep this up, you’re just begging for lawsuits from the sex offender population and possible the ACLU.
Have a great day.
It’s 2018 and being very late to the party and saying things like this :
“ Our whole goal is not to punish anyone, it’s just to make our community safer ,”
Is just plain laughable at this point considering all the data out there to prove otherwise and how the tides have been turning in the courts.
I believe them that it is not their goal to punish people. It is their goal to harass people. It is their goal to harass Americans, their spouses, and their children.
F all people who support the Registries. They are not Americans. We should not care what happens to them. Never support any criminal regime that has Registries. Never support their law enforcement criminals. For anything.