The Registry Can’t Tell You Who Is Safe
There is a particular irony in the arrest of Palm Beach County Clerk of Court Michael Caruso.
Caruso, a former Republican member of the Florida House and a political ally of Gov. Ron DeSantis, was arrested Tuesday on five felony charges related to the alleged sexual abuse of a young relative. Caruso has denied the allegations and, as with anyone accused of a crime, is presumed innocent unless proven guilty in court.
But Caruso’s arrest has also brought renewed attention to something he supported while serving in the Florida Legislature: the death penalty for certain child sex offenses.
In 2023, Caruso voted for legislation allowing prosecutors to seek the death penalty when an adult is convicted of capital sexual battery against a child under 12. The bill was signed into law by Gov. DeSantis. Now, less than four years later, Caruso himself stands to face the same music he himself composed.
There is an important lesson here that has nothing to do with Caruso or his political party. People who commit sexual abuse don’t always look like the monsters politicians describe when they demand harsher penalties. They can be respected members of the community. They can be elected officials. They can be trusted professionals. They can be family members. They are most commonly people who have never appeared on a sex-offender registry.
And that is precisely why Florida’s obsession with publicly identifying people on the registry deserves scrutiny.
The registry is frequently presented as a “tool” that allows parents to identify the people they need to fear. But the Caruso allegations demonstrate the fundamental limitation of that premise: a registry can tell you where a registered person lives. It cannot tell you who is safe.
FAC believes children deserve to be protected. But protecting children requires evidence-based policies, not the assumption that a government database can divide the world neatly into “dangerous people” and everyone else.
FAC NOTE: The allegations against Michael Caruso are just that — allegations. He is entitled to due process, just as every person accused of a crime is. Florida Action Committee does not post stories like this to celebrate anyone’s arrest or to shame an accused person. We post them because they demonstrate why public policy should be based on evidence rather than stereotypes — and why a person’s political status, profession, family relationship or community reputation cannot reliably tell us who may pose a danger to a child.
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The Sex Offense Registries are nothing but a dangerous distraction and diversion away from public safety or protecting children. I truly believe that today there are no informed, intelligent, moral people who think the Registries should exist at all. If you find someone who does, you immediately know that they are defective in one or more of those attributes. Usually, they are just uninformed. But plenty are evil and worse.
As a parent, the Registries were of no use at all for my family. I lived with my spouse and young children in a very nice subdivision. I had neighbors on all sides. My children played with all the children. If I had a neighbor on one side of me who was listed on the Registries (i.e. a PFR) and the neighbor on the other side of me was not, that information was of exactly ZERO value or use to me.
I had no idea which of the two neighbors had molested more children. Or worse. More importantly, I had no idea who was of more danger to do so today. If I had to put money on it, I’d say the PFR was safer and less likely to do so. If I treated either neighbor as safer than the other, then I was not protecting my children at all. I was falling into a trap. Perhaps I was believing the government Registry propaganda and lies even.
I had to teach my children that either neighbor might try to molest them. And I had to watch them. Once I did that, they could hang out with either neighbor and be just fine.
Parents who “need” the Registries or think they are useful in any way, are the bad parents who are not protecting their children. They are just playing the Registry gossip game. Those families are from where the next victims will come.
Another thing that I believe 100% is that the Registries make PFRs a lot more dangerous than they would be than if Registries didn’t exist at all. I have decades of direct, personal knowledge of it. It should be obvious to anyone with a brain. But the “people” who support Registries don’t care. Which just further exposes their lies that the Registries are for public safety or protecting children.
This reminds me of Perillos of Athens who invented an horrific device to kill a person. He invented a hollow bronze bull that a condemned person will be placed in, then, they will light up some wood underneath, causing so much pain that the screams would sound like a raging bull while the person inside will be roasted alive. Ultimately, Perillos was condemned and died inside the very same device he invented to cause pain and an horrific death to a human being.
So here is Caruso….being treated with the very same device he helped to torture a segment of the population….
Watch him get a slap on the wrist.
6 months of probation and time served. No registration.
That is not likely.
like FAC said and not likely Ron is asking for severe penalty on him. BUT HE VOTED FOR IT now he has to defend himself.
https://www.wpbf.com/article/florida-palm-beach-county-clerk-caruso-sex-abuse-death-penalty/73478712
Sounds like the “loudest voice is the greatest offender” trope, and that Karma has a way to circle back around excluding no one.
I refer you to an FAC post from 12 years ago: https://floridaactioncommittee.org/those-who-scream-the-loudest/