Miami-Herald: FAC Opinion Published
An opinion piece in response to a recent article in the Miami Herald was published today.
The text of the response and an image of the article as it appeared are below.
Your December 31, 2018 article, “Report: Number of sex offenders living in Florida is growing.” correctly points out that the Office of Program Policy Analysis and Government Accountability (OPPAGA) does not include any explanation for the rise in the number of sex offenders in our State. However, the reason is obvious. Florida is one of only a small handful of states that requires people to register for the duration of their life.
When you combine new sex offenders being continuously added to the registry with zero attrition, it’s no wonder the numbers have grown (and will continue to grow) at such a fast pace.
Florida has also increased the number of offenses that require registration. Since it was enacted on October 1, 1997, the number of offenses that will land you on our State’s sex offender registry has more than tripled. The 1997 version of Fla. Stat. 943.0435 had eight qualifying offenses, the 2018 version has twenty qualifying offenses!
It is time Florida followed in the footsteps of states such as California and Missouri, who recently enacted a tiered registry. We need to stop wasting millions of taxpayer dollars on something that research has consistently demonstrated is ineffective. If not, the registry will only become more bloated and untenable than it already is.
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The main reason FAC is the premier org representing our cause. Our President! Thanks for publicly shining the truth!
It should also be noted that the other reason (if not the MAIN reason) for the incredible growth of the registry in Florida is that once on you are never removed – EVEN WHEN YOU MOVE OUT OF THE STATE NEVER TO RETURN!
You can go to for a trip to Disney world and never even reside in the state. You registry for the trip as per law so you do your part…little do most realize that once on the Florida SO registry they are on for life! Yes – even if you only registered for a once in a lifetime visit to the Sunshine state – you are listed for life.
If ONLY PERSONS who lived in the state were listed the LIST WOULD BE CUT IN HALF! It would lose that fear factor of a seemingly huge population of perverts when it is simply a life told be politician like Senator Lauren Book to manipulate the public with false data and outright lies!
I’ve registered in 4 different states and i’m still on all of the other states registries.
Thank you for writing and submitting this great piece, Gail!
My only disagreement is the suggestion to enact a tiered registry. Look at other states that use tiered systems. The “registry nazis” in LE and the general public doesn’t distinguish and could care less what tier a registrant carries. Many of them don’t make their tier 1s available to the public, yet there are those that insist they should. Tiers are often based on the offense(s) of conviction or mere record review with little or no evaluation of the individual concerned or the victim(s) of said crime. Some will automatically classify a registrant as a predator if his conviction was in another state. Disputing or appealing classification is always extraordinarily difficult (if not impossible) even with an attorney, which most registrants can’t afford.
After already acknowledging that the registry is ineffective, it doesn’t make much sense to suggest a procedure that only requires more resources to enact and ultimately makes no difference in the effectiveness of an already useless registry.
Exactly. And it’s not moral either.
The registry is illegal and they know it. These people have already paid for their mistake in prison . That is all needed to pay for their mistake. Their is suppose o be equal justice for all. They do not put other people on the registry that have made other mistakes. This is double jeopardy.
Excellent!!
I’m interested to know their response, IF any. Thanks for sharing this.