ActionNewsJax, just ran a story titled, “Homeless sex offenders become growing Florida problem”. Their story (which can be seen below) implies that registrants are somehow intentionally registering themselves as transient in order to evade detection, but that is absolutely NOT the case!
The growing number of transient registrants is the unintended consequence of Sex Offender Residency Restrictions (SORRs) enacted in the State and most municipalities that prevent individuals from living 1000, 1500, 2500 or even farther from places like schools, parks, day cares or “places where children congregate”. That leaves very few housing options. In some cities, this has left fewer than five residential properties which are compliant with the laws.
As more people are added to the list with zero attrition (in Florida registration is for life), the number of people on this list is continuously growing, while the availability of housing is continuously shrinking.
If citizens view “homeless sex offenders [as] becom[ing] a growing Florida problem” they should contact their lawmakers and encourage them to repeal the SORRs.
They will never defend sex offenders in the media, but the fact that you don’t even hear that word in the tampa area news stations is saying a lot IMO.I believe they know, but that’s as close as they can really go with it. Not after how much it used to be sensationalized. Jacksonville is behind the times and way more conservative.
Everyone, Please Remember, This Reporter and its Affiliates VIOLATED THEIR FIDUCIARY DUTY UNDER LAW!
THE MEDIA IS RESPONSIBLE TO BRING FACTS, NOT HYPERBOLE!
IF, I WERE ‘THEY’, I WOULD RUN FOR LEGAL COVER!
Interesting. Since when does the media have a “fiduciary duty“ to tell the truth? Generally, the standard is absence of actual malice. That’s kind of the equivalent of gross negligence on their worst day. Do you actually know what constitutes a fiduciary duty?
Thanks guys, you’re the best. I actually used to be in broadcasting, a million years ago, and around the time of the gmc shootings I noticed the media trending away from informative, substantive, important news and towards the shocking, titillating, tabloid crap that now passes for news. I got out not long after . I wouldn’t wish them on anybody else, but I wish like hell they would lay off this topic for a bit, or for someone to notice that hey, not one of these stories actually mentions an offender doing anything whatsoever to harm a single person, they’re just trying to live their life . Yeah, I know that’s not news either , but it ought to be! Thanks for staying in the fight, these baby steps seem small but they are cumulative and will make a difference!!
Good point Rachel. I keep my eyes open for stories of SOs reoffending, and there are very few.
I’m old enough to remember when news departments were subsidized by the entertainment sections of networks, and thus were free to engage in actual journalism. That changed when bean counters decided news departments were to become independent profit centers. Incentives changed, so news reporting degenerated.
The old mantra was “if it bleeds, it leads.” That has morphed into “if it sizzles it sells,” and nothing sizzles like sex offender panic.
Veritas.
Rachel d….I was on a very popular morning Cable Network News Show weekly for an 11 year period….News is News…BUT we only ever reported the FACTS!
I sent a detailed email to the station’s News Director, Mr. Pascal Head. His email address is [email protected].
I got a follow up email from him. Seems they may want a follow up interview on this story.
That would be great. I didnt have the time to do this but can anyone find something that shows how much of the city is off limits due to the restrictions? I know Levenson did a study years ago on this topic but the study was specific to South Florida
Thank you for this email address.
My email to the reporter, hope others follow up.
Derek Logue iamthefallen1@yahoo.com
To: [email protected]
Your report does not explain WHY there are homeless registrants.
Jacksonville’s local residency restriction laws extend far beyond the state laws of 1000 feet, and the state laws are not retroactive to those before the law was enacted, unlike the Jacksonville ordinance, which has less of those safeguards in place:
Sec. 685.102 – Sexual predators residency requirements.
(a)It is unlawful for any person who is required by Florida law to register as a sexual predator to reside within 2,500 feet of any school, public library, day care center, park, playground, or other place where children regularly congregate.(b)A person residing within 2,500 feet of any school, public library, day care center, park, playground, or other place where children regularly congregate does not commit a violation of this Section, provided that the sexual predator is in full compliance with probation, parole, or conditional release and does not commit another sexual offense, and was in compliance with the residency restrictions prior to July 1, 2005, if any of the following apply:(1)The person established the permanent residence prior to July 1, 2005.(2)The person was a minor when he/she committed the offense and was not convicted as an adult.(3)The person is a minor.(4)The school, public library or day care center within 2500 feet of the persons permanent residence was opened after the person established the permanent residence.(c)A person who violates subsection (a) shall be guilty of a class D offence.
(Ord. 2005-629-E, § 3; Ord. 2010-836-E, § 4)
Note— Former § 674.502.
This essentially places the vast majority of housing unavailable to many registrants. It only took me a minute to find this.
Derek W. Logue of OnceFallen.com
Registered Citizen/ Civil Rights Advocate
#abolishtheregistry
Great points! I’m pretty sure law enforcement would also rather track and check on sex offenders who are living at a real address. Versus in the woods somewhere.
I love the fear-mongering reporting that doesn’t even check into the root causes. No wonder the panic-fueled general public votes for lawmakers who pass ignorant laws just for political points.
The media is definitely exploiting the boogeyman component of the label for easy ratings, increased viewership and profitability.
We’re the golden goose for the media, lawmakers and law enforcement by them playing politics and GOD with our lives.
Monetizing misery should be illegal.
Was this report at 210 and I-95 making it in St. Johns Co?
The report invokes stranger danger and challenges deputies to harass homeless registrants. Yet it implicitly acknowledges that not one sex crime has resulted from this apparent lack of oversight.
So frustrating.
I have often driven through this interchange, but it did not occur to me that transient registrants live there. Local business owners don’t seem to be bothered by it. That could change with Action News Jax stirring things up. Hopefully, SJC Sheriffs Office knows better than to take their bait. They have better things to do.
You run homeless off from one spot and they end living in the bushes behind the city commisoners house. All actions have equal reactions. You run over a nail, you will probably get a flat.
You run people off from their camps, they have to live somewhere. I see homeless people sleeping on bus benches all the time with an elderly bus rider having to stand in the hot sun until the bus arrives, sometimes 45 minutes apart. The police use to run them off but the NAACP stopped that.
If you seal up your attic where racoons got in, they will either find another way in or go to the neighbors attic. Every living creature needs a place to lay their head and rest.,
PS: The reporter’s email address is
[email protected]
They never even bothered to explain the cause of this problem, namely, the residency restrictions.
I’ve noticed a growing number of media outlets are disabling commenting and not posting it to social media for these types of stories.
Being a registered sex offender not only restricts housing, but it prevents a person from getting a job at a liveable wage or any job at all, thus leading to homelessness.
I was just inspired to share something that came to mind. This could be any of us. When I was released from prison, I had a support system in place. My parents did not reject me and came and picked me up and I moved in with them.
When I got on my feet, I got my own place. I was still on probation. I had promised a bunch of guys I would help them when they got out. I let them down because all the plans I had to help some of these guys who had no one to help them, got squashed by my probation officer.
See she said it was a violation of my probation to live with another felon while on probation. After I had to break the news to all of them, most stopped writing. One kept writing for a while but he decided to do something stupid to just stay in prison.
About 25% of the world’s total prison population is in the United States, which holds about 2.19 million prisoners as of 2019 (1.38 million in federal and state prisons, 745,200 in jails).
Some of these will never get out but many eventually will. If you do not have a plan or some sort of help or assistance from friends, family or an organization, you will most likely end up on the streets. I have no idea what I would have done if my parents had told me I was on my own.
Any of us on this site, just the fact we are able to use the internet means we beat the odds of ending up in one of these camps most likely. Remember every day to remind your family and friends how much you love them.
I am struck by the difference between Polk and St John’s counties here.
Were this Polk (or Volusia), the Sheriff’s office would be fear-mongering, calling them names, and actively looking for reasons to re-arrest them and announce those arrests.
SJCSO, by contrast, says basically, “this is what the law is, we’re doing this because we’re following the law.”
That’s exactly the attitude chump the sheriff department’s recruit for ask no questions swear to badge and flag go arrest lol
I went to their website at https://www.waff.com/ and can’t find the story to post a comment on. Did they take it down already?
The video is still up at
https://www.actionnewsjax.com/news/investigates/investigates-homeless-sex-offenders-become-growing-florida-problem/OGDRSELKJVASZPXGOO2V4TWQGE/
but there is no comment section that I can find. Please contact the reporter, Robert Grant, at [email protected]. Pascale Head is the News Director and needs to be contacted, too, but I have been unable to find her email address. Maybe an FAC member can help us out on that as Ms. Head needs to know how misinformed Mr. Grant’s report was.
Thank you, RM, for your help. I am sending an email to Mr. Grant also. Hopefully, other FAC members will join us in this effort. As always, though, be gentle with him. My experience has been that they will not listen to us if we start attacking them. This reporter is probably a very nice man — just needs some gentle educating.
That’s not news4jax, looks like Huntsville Alabama. News4jax is in Jacksonville and cost my husband his job when they turned up at his place of employment with cameras. The owner knew everything but had hired him anyway (there are a couple decent people out there) but the reporter was so accusatory about how you could hire someone on the registry that he had to let him go, the publicity would have been devastating for the business. Never mind that the offense was some internet pictures years ago.They then turned up at our house where my 85 year old stroke patient dad answered the door to cameras and reporters wanting to know how we felt about the firing . It would be lovely if someone, anyone, could make these vultures see the heartbreak and damage they cause, but I just don’t see it happening. News4jax does run one of these stories every few weeks, I’m sure one will come up soon!
Sorry – posted the wrong video.
You wrote: ” It would be lovely if someone, anyone, could make these vultures see the heartbreak and damage they cause…”
Be advised, they don’t care because this is how they make their living. Sorry this happened to you and your family. WFTV in Orlando does very similar “reporting” if you can really call it that. They destroyed my life too. So I know who you feel.
💜
Already had one today, an attorney for the city of Jacksonville Beach was arrested today on suspected molestation charges. And of course they gleefully reported every detail they had. It’s pathetic
Andrea
And what happens if they find out he is not guilty and the accusations were fabricated? Who repairs that persons life? Tried in the media as guilty before even seeing a judge.
Rachel
The same thing happened to me back about 17 years ago. I spoke to a lawyer. He said the constitution gives the press basically a free pass to do almost anything they want.
For God sakes they drive around with police scanners and show up while your loved ones lays dying from a gun shot and start filming.
All they care about is getting the story no matter who they embarass, no matter whose lives they ruin. And if they report something wrong, they rarely announce a retraction.
Rachel d, I have sent several emails to News4Jax in the past year concerning the misinformation they have been putting out on registrants — at times, absolute falsehoods. But nothing changes with that station.
That station has been my favorite local Jacksonville station all of my life. I no longer watch News4Jax.