Source: Miami New Times
In 2009, California artist Scott Gairdner made the “Sex Offender Shuffle,” a viral video parodying Miami-Dade’s treatment of sex offenders. With a catchy beat and ’80s-style cinematography, the four-minute spoof of the 1985 Chicago Bears’ “Super Bowl Shuffle” mocked the way sex offenders are shuffled from one location to another under the guise of public safety.
Nine years later, the sex offender shuffle is playing out in real life in Miami-Dade. After being forced to leave a longtime encampment near Hialeah, a group of homeless sex offenders was kicked out of its new location near the airport over the weekend.
“There’s no solution,” says Frank Diaz, a pastor who ministers to the affected offenders. “They’re just sweeping them from one place to another.”
The evictions date back to March, when the county gave notice to about 100 homeless sex offenders living at an encampment alongside railroad tracks near Hialeah that they had until May 6 to vacate the area. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a lawsuit trying to intervene but lost the court battle, and the residents of “Tent City” were forced to leave in early May.
After the hearing, the offenders’ lawyer, Jeffrey Hearne, accurately predicted the decision would simply create new encampments of homeless sex offenders.
“They’ll most likely be relocating to another street corner,” Hearne told the Miami Herald .
So in mid-May, a group of former Tent City residents moved to a location off NW 37th Avenue just northeast of Miami International Airport. But last weekend, Diaz says, police stationed themselves in the area and informed the offenders they couldn’t stay there either.
“When I ask [the offenders] where they’re going, they say, ‘We don’t know,'” Diaz tells New Times. “They’ve been split up as the Tent City that we saw, and now there’s like four different locations where they’re residing.”
Many critics, including the ACLU, say the county’s restrictive residency requirements are to blame. The Lauren Book Child Safety Ordinance — championed by Florida Sen. Lauren Book’s father: Homeless Trust chair and mega-lobbyist Ron Book — prevents child sex offenders from living within 2,500 feet of places where children congregate, such as schools and parks. (The rule is far more restrictive than the more standard statewide law requiring them to live 1,000 feet away.)
In a contentious interview earlier this month with CBS’s Jim DeFede, Ron Book shifted the blame to the offenders by arguing they “shouldn’t be homeless.”
He told DeFede: “They need to work to find places to live.”
Book later added he’d “be happy to encourage” life imprisonment for child sex offenders as an alternative to the current housing debacle.
Until a long-term solution is found, Tent City residents will continue to do the sex offender shuffle.
“They’re in that limbo, and they keep being brushed away,” Diaz says. “I’m not condoning their crimes, but we’re humans. We’ve got to have a little bit of compassion. Let’s find a place and put them in housing so they can have some kind of hope to return to society.”
On my previous comment I did not have my glasses sorry about errors the way i found out about other states is by searching rules of a SO moving to your state(just put in the state) New Mexico Bernalillo county claims to have the most lenient laws in the USA so they added a law that doesn’t affect a thing. Remember it’s a Republican St atw. I have actually took the time to look up every state. I also made calls to the SO dept. that they said you can call for more info.. All said that you should bring what you were charged with and have a risk assessment in hand by a licensed person qualified yo do a risk assessment in this situation(sexologist). Most states will judged your case on those merits and let you know the state law on your registration.. So everybody has different. Don’t compare your case to my results.
I a have registered for a BA yn all types if addiction services. Since I have many degrees they accepted all my requirements except for my specialty classes which I will finish in a year. so next summer I wo;; graduate and move to Vermont where it comes together with the NY and Mass border. Vermont is a state that told the Feds to keep their money these laws are not stopping anything. New Mexico is another. So I choose Vermont ,the city if Battleboro receives little snow and I have to tolerate lower temp in Jan. ans Feb. which does go to the 30’s/ I have plenty of warm clothes. There are more states realizing these laws won’t prevent recidivism among sex offenders.. Therapy will just like AA and na ECT.,pENNSYLVANIA NOW MADE IT A LIFETIME TO ATTEND THERAPY ;EVEN OFF PROBATION. This entire sex offender laws and community knowledge is so far out of reach. Unless we become verbal and inform people of the truth and educate people it will keep on going further in Florida. Even NY has changed their laws and came to reality of the situation. No longer can you even ask if you are a felony and after you get the job they do only a 3 year background check. They don’t want to know your past to your labeling by the court. They want people who can perform their job. There are so many people who are so talented and well educated who won’t get employed because of the title the court has given them. I have fought in my county and have gotten much changed even the county is now hiring registered citizens and waste management. Every client has a job except two who are terminally ill and on SSI. After including all the murderers that are in prison on life sentences’s are still killing within prison which now makes registered citizens the lowest recidivism rate. Technical violations does not have to do with recidiva. No new crime of the same nature was committed. Please not make the mistake that many people make in the community recidivism is performing a new charge that reflects the previous crime.