“Put them all in prison forever.”
That wasn’t said by an internet commenter. It was said by Jacksonville Sheriff T.K. Waters while discussing people convicted of sex offenses following “Operation Checkmate.” According to News4JAX, the Sheriff stated: “I think you should put them all in prison forever. That’s just my opinion. Or, we get rid of them completely because my experience tells me that they can’t be cured. And if you get one, you interview them. If they’re honest with you, they’ll tell you they can’t be cured. They’re probably in the safest place that they can be.”
The Sheriff is not saying people should be punished according to the law. He’s not saying people should serve the sentence imposed by a judge. He’s saying an entire class of people should be imprisoned forever, regardless of what the law provides, because he personally believes they “can’t be cured.” That is not law enforcement. That is prejudice!
The reality is that decades of research have shown that people convicted of sex offenses are not a homogeneous group and that already low recidivism rates decline dramatically with time, age, and offense-free behavior. Most never reoffend at all. Yet here we have the chief law enforcement officer of one of Florida’s largest cities publicly declaring that every one of them belongs in prison for life and can’t be cured!
Statements like this should concern everyone — not just registrants and their families. We expect sheriffs to enforce the law fairly and objectively, not to substitute personal bias for facts and evidence. When a sheriff openly declares that an entire group of citizens is beyond redemption, it raises serious questions about whether those individuals can ever expect fair treatment from his agency.
Whether someone is popular or unpopular, sympathetic or unsympathetic, justice requires facts, evidence, and individual assessment. Not blanket assumptions and fear-driven rhetoric. A sheriff who believes an entire class of people should be imprisoned forever despite what the law says has forgotten his role. His job is to enforce the law, not rewrite it based on personal opinion. Someone like this should not be in office because he’s a danger to the community.
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And remember when your already 10k in legal already paid our looking at 5 k with added on with their phyco-sexual evals and all in 2015 money it gets pricey
Imagine serving your country, fighting in combat, and retiring with commendations signed by a four-star general and the President, only to later be treated worse than a criminal. It feels like the government turned its back on me.
I was told I was getting a deal. That “deal” ended up being three years of probation and a registration requirement. At the time, I didn’t fully understand what that meant. I was told the registry was basically like checking in at the DMV. Faced with the possibility of five or more years in prison, I took the plea.
It was one of the most frightening and emotional times of my life. I had just retired and was trying to focus on my family and my children. My case centered around a single image that was sent from my phone to an undercover officer. The image wasn’t even of me—it was a picture of a body part. A friend sent it from my phone, but because it came from my device, I was held responsible. The prosecutor saw it as an easy case and pushed for a plea deal.
Looking back, I wish I had gone to trial. I regret taking the plea. Then again, with the way juries often react to these kinds of allegations, I may have ended up in prison anyway.
What hurts the most is that I am a retired U.S. combat veteran whose disabilities were caused by wartime service, yet I now carry a permanent stigma. In many facilities, people on the registry are categorized alongside terrorists in security procedures. Seeing that written in official SOPs is painful.
After everything I sacrificed for my country, being viewed through that lens is something I never imagined I would experience.
Registration requirements normally are non-negotiable because they are required by statute.
Going to trial would not have avoided registration, either, unless the jury acquitted you.
Which, come to think of it, might have been quite possible if you were just taking the fall for a crime committed by a so-called “friend.”
I’m no lawyer, though.
Yeah but they also sit there and pressure you into sitting there and signing a deal and yes there are deals in the statues where you don’t have to register if the judge says so
It continues to trouble me when public servants — especially those sworn to uphold the law — show such profound ignorance of it. Florida has become notorious for sheriffs and officials who publicly reinforce the stigma placed on people who have already served their sentences, completed treatment, and are trying to rebuild their lives. Instead of helping citizens reintegrate, they fuel fear and misinformation.
Much of the public remains blind to the reality of these Americans and their families. Bias replaces education. Emotion replaces fact. And the result is a community willing to treat fellow citizens and human beings as if they are permanently broken, incapable of humanity, and undeserving of dignity.
Ironically, many professionals who actually work with registrants understand the truth: these individuals are not sentenced to a life without liberty, opportunity, or hope. Many clergy also recognize the human condition — the universal struggle with sin, the need for redemption, and the possibility of transformation. Yet some lawmakers and members of the public refuse to acknowledge any of this.
What is especially disturbing is seeing sheriffs — particularly in Florida — disregard the very oath they swore. Their duty is to protect all citizens, to uphold due process, and to ensure safety during crises such as storms. Instead, some choose to grandstand, dehumanize, and inflame prejudice. That is not law enforcement; it is discrimination dressed up as public safety.
Public officials have a responsibility to lead with facts, not fear. When they instead promote bias, they contribute directly to homelessness, unemployment, and desperation — conditions that make communities less safe, not more. Pushing people into hopelessness is not justice; it is negligence.
Shame on those who fail to uphold their office and who use their authority to mistreat the very people they are sworn to serve. America deserves better than officials who weaponize stigma instead of protecting constitutional rights.
you have a good reason to be troubled. You have made excellent observations. Now lets go further and ask why if we may? History proves that justice systems and governments will never consistently uphold the law because they are operated by humans—and human nature has not fundamentally changed across millennia.
Consider the evidence in daily life: news broadcasts deliver forty-five minutes of violence, catastrophe, and corruption for every two minutes of uplifting human kindness. This ratio reflects our true nature.
“Civilization” is a thin veneer. The fastest routes to power, wealth, and authority have always been violence, exploitation, and crime—provided they are executed at sufficient scale. Victimize one person and you are a criminal; victimize millions and you become a conqueror; control the narrative entirely and you become worshipped.
History does not punish its greatest offenders—it memorializes them. Those who claim “violence solves nothing” or “crime doesn’t pay” have simply not read the history books. It solves everything, but only for those with the will and scale to wield it.
“It continues to trouble me when public servants — especially those sworn to uphold the law — show such profound ignorance of it.
Ignorance is often mistaken for courage among law enforcement circles. It’s that very wilful-ignorance and anti-intellectualism that perpetuates this toxic ideology while giving them a false sense of relavance.
If we would have used the phrase ” Or, we get rid of them completely” about say one of his family members we would be in jail.
Notice your last statement: His words will invite a vigilante spree in that county and the blood will be on his hands.
Now magnify that to the national level and what do you get? Answer….legalization of vigilante murder nationwide with no prosecution to the suspected murderers. Only the blood won’t be on any Congressional representative or Senator’s hands.
Caveat: We aren’t allowed to say the quiet part out loud anymore. Doing so risks censorship and offends the woke masses—heaven forbid they should wake up and realize they’re merely tools in someone else’s arsenal. Chances are you will never be allowed to read this truth because I will likely be censored for the effort. Funny that since the quiet part is exactly the purpose of the registry in the first place and censoring those who pronounce it just helps to further insulate it and make it stronger.
It is not accidental when people in positions of authority make violent statements and deploy inflammatory rhetoric and registry’s against specific groups they claim to want harmed or to “disappear”. It is, in fact, standard operating procedure for ascending to stardom and avoiding personal responsibility for one’s own illicit actions. This sheriff understands the playbook. Lauren Book and dear old daddy mastered it with immense success. Mao, Stalin, McCarthy, Hitler—the Books have all channeled the idiocracy of the masses to devastating effect. Can you think of any other famous names that fit? (I can)..
This is deliberate. A calculated effort to incite mob mentality while positioning oneself at the glittering center of the storm. The majority of the world’s population are useful idiots, blissfully unaware of their own ignorance. Then there is the one or two percent who deliberately work as lightning rods, agitating the ninety-eight percent into stampede mode so they can ride the wave—capitalizing on the fame, power, and fortune it generates.
After all, who cares about the ants underfoot that get stomped in the process?
Obvious, I knew we could count on you to compare the Duval County sheriff to mass murderers Mao, Stalin, and Hitler!
I didn’t make the comparison, history did. Grab a book.. I was just the somebody that remembered the history everyone forgot so had to say what’s become painfully obvious: the most dangerous tyrants often begin as angry nobodies. Just like our tin star bobby.. Hitler was a failed artist whose anti-Semitic rants in Munich beer halls eventually captivated a desperate nation. Stalin was a bank-robbing revolutionary who systematically eliminated even his closest allies during paranoid purges. Mao was a librarian’s assistant whose peasant-focused appeals led to disastrous policies that killed millions. Pol Pot was an obscure academic who implemented an agrarian nightmare that emptied Cambodia’s cities. Like this small-town sheriff spewing violent rhetoric about “killing all the RSOs,” they each lit the fuse of public fear and anger, then watched as the useful idiot masses carried their torches. The history books are filled with their victims—ordinary people who didn’t recognize the danger until it was too late.
I read another one of your responses and found it extremely insightful, such that it really deserves to be shared in some form. I have not yet gotten up the courage/ time to pass some of these to national editorial pages, but this other one I read was unique and certainly worthy of thought. I will find it and respond to you. I hope you do not mind if I use some of those facts to help educate others. Thank you for your efforts.
You have my full permission to use any of my posts. I only ask that you prepare yourself for a harsh reality: most people, even others on the registry, don’t want to hear the truth when it conflicts with their comfortable beliefs or what they’ve been told to believe.
I’ve spent over 35 years on the registry for a mistake made as a young man. In that time, I’ve watched these laws expand from a 5-year requirement to a life sentence that extends beyond death. I’ve documented how my career withered, my family disintegrated, and how my children became targets of abuse by students and school staff alike. I’ve even fought against law enforcement officers who believed it was acceptable to ogle through my daughter’s windows because of my registry status.
For decades, I’ve warned about where this was heading through organizations like NARSOL and the ACLU. I was laughed at, ridiculed, censored, and threatened. Now that everything I predicted has come true, I’m still waiting for even a whisper of acknowledgment.
Use my words if they help your cause, but know that many will mock you until they find themselves in the same position. History is repeating itself, but too few are willing to learn from it.
This should call all of his departments stings, operations, and s/o arrests to be reviewed. Truth is that his bias shows that he cannot perform his duties within the Constitution.
Unless the Law comes first, the badge is meaningless.
His words will invite a vigilante spree in that county and the blood will be on his hands.