Sheriff pushes for GPS tracking of homeless sex offenders

Gotta love the BS in this story.

They throw in the term “loophole” to imply these sex offenders are choosing to be homeless in order to exploit the system. As if they would rather be homeless than have a roof over their head. As if they don’t realize that the reasons there are so many homeless sex offenders are (a) because residency restrictions prevent them from living in most places and (b) public registration stigmatizes them to the point they are unemployable – not to mention employment restrictions.

The story also says there are over 60,000 registrants in Florida “living in your community!” to try to scare us. We know what a pile of BS that is. Only about half that number are actually living in your community because Florida keeps people who leave the state, were just visiting temporarily, are deported, incarcerated or even dead on their registry in order to artificially inflate the numbers so they get more funding. Take a look at the FDLE registration site and you’ll find they even allow you to search for deceased registrants! Comical!!!

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Sheriff pushes for GPS tracking of homeless sex offenders
Story By Greg Angel/CBS12

STUART (CBS12) — Martin County Sheriff William Snyder is pushing lawmakers to allow local municipalities to force homeless sex offenders to wear GPS monitor devices.

This is in response to the number of transient registered sex offenders.

“We’re very concerned that part of our homeless population is comprised of predators and offenders,” Sheriff Snyder said. “I have no control over that. No law enforcement has control over that, because the law does not say they have to have a home.”

Sheriff Snyder says transient sex offenders have to check in with their office once a month. By law, transient offenders have to register four times a year, and this is in addition to any surprise checks deputies may do.

While there is a state law that limits sex offenders from living within 1,000 feet of a school, playground or daycare center, offenders can wander into any of these zones at any time. Sheriff Snyder says the problem is offenders are not tethered.

“it does create a much more difficult situation for us to keep tabs on them, but they’re not breaking any laws being homeless,” Sheriff Snyder said. He adds that sometimes offenders may register as a transient but turn up living in a house in an effort to keep law enforcement at bay.

Sheriff Snyder says he has been working with lawmakers in Tallahassee to develop a bill that would give local municipalities authority to require transient sex offenders to wear GPS monitors. The cost of the program, Sheriff Snyder admits, would likely be passed on to taxpayers, if their local municipality chose to enforce such an ordinance.

It’s a cost that Sheriff Snyder says is worth it to know exactly where sex offenders are at all times.

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