Sex offenders removed from Fort Lauderdale parking lot, but housing problem remains
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Fort Lauderdale police have cleared a parking lot where Local 10 News previously found registered sex offenders and sexual predators staying under probation supervision.
One person was arrested and others were given trespass warnings during the recent police operation at a shopping center in the 2400 block of North Federal Highway.
But while the parking lot is now cleared, the underlying problem remains.
Where are people subject to Florida’s strict sex offender residency restrictions supposed to go when they have nowhere else they can legally stay?
That question is at the center of a complicated conflict between local police and property owners and the state supervision system.
Local 10 first investigated the parking lot in June after discovering registered sex offenders and sexual predators who had been released from prison and were under supervision staying there. The location had been approved by the Florida Department of Corrections as a place where some of those individuals could stay when they had no other approved housing option.
Jeff Feldman, a former federal probation supervisory officer who now works as a consultant, has seen the problem from the supervision side. “It’s the norm for transient sex offenders,” Feldman said. “They have nowhere to live and we have nowhere to put them.” Feldman said the problem has been developing for decades.
Discover more from Florida Action Committee (FAC)
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
The sex offender registry rules are absurd. It doesn’t make anyone safer. It has been proven in study after study. The recividism rate is very low compared to other crimes. People think everyone on the registry is a Pedofile but that is certainly not true. It’s almost like there is this mental block or something because no listens to the facts that prove it’s not working. Most child sex crimes are committed by a family member or someone they know so making it where they can’t live or go in all these “child safety zones” doesn’t make any kind of sense.
In my opinion, for nearly all people it doesn’t come down to how dangerous or not dangerous someone is. It’s that they don’t want anyone with a sexual offense coming near their children, and I get that because parents are protective of their children.
The problem is that they are not seeing the big picture.
Nearly 95% of all offenses do not come from a stranger as you pointed out, but the public is trained to view the registry as a means of safety, which has a very low recidivism rate.
It would take parents to be very proactive in watching over their children by becoming engaged in where they are going and when, and knowing who they are actually talking to online.
Also, they would have to mitigate video supervision in doctor’s offices, day care centers, school offices, locker rooms, etc.-it would require them to do much more work than rely on a registry that does not prevent crime and does not protect anyone.
People are brainwashed by the media and the legal system to think the registry is a one-size-fits-all covering and completely bypass the above suggestions, and so the lie continues in spite of the facts.
It’s good to see it getting public view. The question though, is for how long?
How convenient that these people have suddenly been trespassed from that parking lot, and suddenly it is solely the property owner that wants them gone from the property, and all on the day that a news report and others that are pointing this issue out are to be there. This decision wouldn’t have been made by city officials would it, maybe as a “tough on those kind of people” move perhaps? Keeping track of us is one thing, constant persecution and ostracizing us is another. If we are such a danger to society (we’re not), then why do we ever get set free from prison? Why don’t we get life sentences like say, murderers? Why aren’t other much higher recidivism crimes tracked on a public registries as we are, such as DUI, theft/robbery, drug offenders both dealers and users, and even domestic violence offenders? Yes, there are “registries” for some of these crimes, but none as lucrative and publicly exposing as the SOP Registry. Even the new animal abuse Registry is minimally informative, and you must know their name to find them on that registry. How many people are actually prosecuted for failure to register as a felon when moving to a different county or state? Has anyone looked up the recidivism rates and differences between other crimes and SO crimes? I’ve looked at the statistics between DUI and sexual offense recidivism, and that alone is staggering.
Charles- You should email [email protected] you write some good pieces need them on here
Very Fair and Balanced piece of reporting. More of this and soon the tides will turn. Not excusing the crime or diminishing the victims, but adding in some logic to the laws. “ROLL BACK THE REGISTRY to 1997” and 99% of the issues would be solved.
Abolish the registry to solve the remainder.
This is all coming to a head, and it couldn’t be happening at a better time now that the Federal lawsuit has been filed by FAC.
This is a problem that the registry and Florida have created and it’s not going to go away until dramatic GOOD change comes.
No longer can they say ‘We don’t know where they can live-that’s their problem’.
Now probation has no where for them to go and the probation office must answer for that!
It should also be embarrassing for the correctional system for someone to say ‘I’ll just go back to prison’ because they don’t want them back either and it shows how the penal system has failed..
Ultimately, it shows how sorna has failed.
Amazing segment loved it