Union County, Florida was next to pass harsh residency restrictions
Like Dominoes… Union County, Florida passed its 2500 foot Sex Offender Residency Restriction on the 15th of September. Union, which is the smallest county in the State, now has one of the harshest SORRs.
Of course, the SORR includes school bus stops, but among the other winners in this draconian ordinance is a prohibition on “traveling through” a buffer zone unless you are attending to a list of 7 exemptions. Not on the list of exemptions is stuff like shopping for groceries, going to the bank, getting a haircut, grabbing a coffee, getting gas, or going to church.
Naturally the ordinance does not require the county to paint lines or put up signs when you are entering within 2500 feet of one of these places, so it’ll be up to you to know where those 2500 foot circles are.
Let’s see which county is next!
You can read a copy of the ordinance here: Union County Ordinance 2025-04
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What if a sex offender innocently drives through Union and not know of this law and gets pulled over… These laws are traps.
While not knowing the law is not a defense, not being able to know the law is a defense. The county needs to make it known to all what the boundaries are with a map and what exists within the boundaries to ensure they do exist for continual enforcement. Also, if there is no intention for the PFR to stop and offend off of the road they are prohibited from traveling on, then, the PFR is not able to be held accountable for traversing the county.
The county is pushing the limit to see how far they can go without being told no. Once they know they’ll be legally challenged and their local budget will be drained monetarily in a legal fight, they could very well at that time stop enforcing it (and should be legally challenged still).
How can this be legal? We already deal.with hard enough situations. I personally can’t fly..How the hell can anyone be expected to exist without these punitive new rules?
What about people who own homes? What are they supossed to do? Most people can’t afford to just move there entire life somewhere new because the hateful country just decides to roll the Civil right calenders back 50 years.
This is harsh and not everyone has options to do so but I advise to leave FL for I do not see it getting any better. Fight for the outside while it gets possibly worse here
Impossible to comply with this ordinance.
Agree
I want to add that my case falls under the 1994 guidelines. That why the judge had the ability to not restrict me. In fact, there were a butt-ton of things that went into effect October 1st, 1995. The judge read the list of new restrictions and said he was not making me do any of that. So, if they want to say ‘public safety’, my sentencing judge already said that I was not a danger by his actions.
Total insanity. Does the FAC plan to fight this?
We are first focusing on Putnam – we need to raise the funds and get the plaintiffs. We need our members’ support.
This has to be sued against immediately.