URGENT CALL TO ACTION: Florida wants to reduce registration period to 3 days!
Senator Lauren Book (senate) and representative Fitzenhagen (House) have sponsored legislation that, among other things, would reduce the number of days that constitutes a permanent or temporary residence to THREE (3) days, instead of the current FIVE (5) days.
Five days is bad enough, but three days would mean no more long weekends away with the family without having to take the extra day off to go IN PERSON to the DMV to change your address (and then again, to change it back)!
HB 1301: Sexual Offenders and Predators
SB 1226: Sentencing for Sexual Offenders and Sexual Predators
Sexual Offenders and Predators; Reduces aggregate & consecutive number of days used to determine residency for purposes of sexual predator or sexual offender registration; provides for mandatory minimum sentence of community control with electronic monitoring for certain offenses.
It will change the current 5 days to 3 days. Require in person notification!
It’s impossible for registrants to comply. This is just another tactic of the legislature to set mine fields for registrants who want to travel or for visitors to our state.
Once on the Florida Registry … even if you are not on a public registry in their home state … they will be now, courtesy of Florida.
For those who DO live here and periodically travel, this requirement is unrealistic. You would have to make TWO trips to the DMV to change your address (and then change it back). For a three-day trip, you’d have to spend two days waiting at the DMV.
FIND YOUR LEGISLATOR HERE:
https://openstates.org/find_your_legislator/
Tallahassee Office
202 Senate Office Building
404 South Monroe Street
Tallahassee, FL 32399-1100
(850) 487-5032
Senate VOIP: 5032
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I used your link and called my rep and left the message with the person answering the phone at her office. I also called Tallahassee office and left a message.
This is the first time making a call like this to my rep and wonder what is the best thing to say if they answer or what message to leave on the recorded voice mail?
I simple said my first name and stated that I was calling to encourage Representative Grall to vote “NO” on HR 1301and left my zip code.
Well if we cant vote for them are they really our reps? We arent even constituants if you thi k about it. We cant vote so they dont even consider us citizens. They will do nothing to entertain our issues as we have no affect on them.
I had a couple of experiences trying to register my presence with sheriffs outside of Florida. In Rich Creek, VA, I went into the office to report my presence and the officer there asked me what I wanted him to do? I said just put your initials on this travel permit…to show I made an effort. He didn’t ask for my name or any other information. He initialed it and I left. Another time I was in Virginia Beach for a release from probation hearing. I went to three different sheriff’s offices and no one knew what to do so I just went to the VA Beach probation office and let them know I was there. They said OK and then I left. Once again they didn’t even ask for my name. In the time it took I could have had a couple cups of coffee. Most of these states are so far ahead of Florida in managing sex offenders that trying to comply with Florida out of state is a joke. I have a friend in Richmond, VA, who is an ex-sex offender. He got his voting rights restored without even requesting it. “This is earth, come in Florida”.
Here its just done for the thrill of it and the revenue. No other rhyme or reason. Everywhere else i was ok to thrive and live. Here somehow im on some sick perverted lifetime control.
I e-mailed both of my representatives in hopes it does some good . Why is it never brought to light that Mrs. Book was a victim of a sexual predator and that’s why she has a grudge against anyone on the registry. Its personal for her not professional its like having bills put forth to make life for arsonists hell because a senator got her house burned down as a child.
We cannot stop fighting the fight but every time i see another e-mail from F.A.C. i cringe because i know its just 1 more thing to make our lives a living hell. There are so many rich people recently that have been placed on the registry why cant we get them to pony up some cabbage and get people on this 24/7 (the squeaky wheels gets the oil) Because of my crap job i dont have a second to do so or i would as i am sure most of you out there would. This is modern day slavery telling us where to live and arresting us if we dont live there, making just enough money to survive until tomorrow so we have to stay at that job or miss a day or pay, not allowing us to stay in shelters when hurricanes or worse come. I wish just a glimmer of the insanity would stop. Or someone would go up to Mrs Book and her Father and apologize for what happened to her as a child maybe that would make things better for us.
Mr. Hope,
you’re hearing from us a lot about crappy stuff because it’s legislative session – the time of year when legislators pay back the lobbyists.
You’ll get fewer cringe-worthy emails after session is over.
At least you’re hearing something, right? Otherwise all this would be going on in the background and nobody would be opposing it.
FAC keep the information flowing. I thank you so very much for your involvement. I’m sure everyone does but the games these bureaucrats play to make people think they are earning their salary are frustrating. It’s all of our jobs to slowly but surely show these ‘legislative clowns’ to be the fools that they are.
OK, I will call and make my meaningless attempt to fight these morons. However, they can make all the laws and additions to bills they want, I WILL NOT follow their ridiculous and impossible laws. When I plan on going on vacation, I’m gonna do just that, go on vacation. I’m not going to spend one ounce of my brain cells worrying about complying with Little Miss Precious’ law about registering a temporary address. Kiss my a$$! OK, so say I go on vacay for longer than 3 days. The only way I can get busted is, A) I get pulled over and that sheriff’s deputy is actually smart enough to know what the rules are on sex offenders (spoiler: most cops have no clue) and I get questioned on how long I’ve been there…which begs another question, how in the f**k will anyone know how long I have or have not been in a said location?? OK, so I pay for everything in cash so there’s no paper trail on my debit card about where I’ve been, etc… and B) The very unlikely event that a detective does their yearly check at my residence while I’m on vacay. Which again, I can always lie and say yeah I just went out of town for 2 days, I’ll be back tomorrow and can meet you at my house then…….here again, I’ve found that MOST cops and even detectives have NO CLUE or cannot seem to harmonize with each other on what the laws are governing SO’s……So go ahead Lauren Crook. Make all the damn laws you want to make yourself look relevant. I can assure you, I won’t follow a damn one of them.
If a local cop ever suspects that I’ve been away from my permanent address too long, and starts asking me where I’ve been, etc., he’ll get no answers from me. I will never answer any questions from the local sex offender squads unless I feel like it, and it benefits me in some way.
If you are NOT ON PROBATION, when the police come to your home to do address verification, show them your license, politely smile, but you are not under any obligation to answer questions and certainly do not let them into your home. Nothing can be gained by doing anything other than verifying your identity and address to them and thanking them for their time.
Be polite and courteous. If they say, “nice weather we’ve been having!” it’s fine to say, “yes, the weather has been great”, for example. But if they ask questions relating to your offense, where you go, what you do or ask if you mind if they come inside and take a look around, you should tell them you would love to be cooperative but you’d like to have an attorney present if they want to ask you questions, and if they want to come inside, they can only do so only with a warrant.
I do have to say, the deputies that have done my verification’s have all been polite and courteous.
and I , in return , have been the same.
most of the ones that that have been out know me and the majority will tell you ( as they have told me ) these laws are wasting their time and resources, but it’s their job, so they have to do it
So you wouldn’t be surprised by the things that I heard other officers that came by and did my brothers registration. One of them said we don’t care if we stay here or not you just tell us to stay here and that’s what we want to go on
Very good advice. I totally agree. I don’t need to constantly answer questions about something I’ve already paid my debt to society for.
All of the deputies that have done my in person verifications have been courteous and brief. “Hi Mr. Anonymous, any changes to report?” “No sir””Ok, have a nice day””Yes sir, you too”. Sometimes they stop by when I’m at work and leave a card in the door to call when I return home so they can stop by and say hello. Sometimes I meet them outside and they never get out of the patrol car. Some have lamented that it’s just as big of a pain in the ass for them as it is for us, though I seriously doubt they have a clue.
I’d like to see us go to a risk based model with an escape hatch like Georgia has. My non contact offense has been ages ago and I’m still ten years from being allowed to apply to deregister, assuming I don’t accidentally run afoul of the “any new offenses” clause and start the 25 year clock over again…or the 25 year clause gets revoked entirely due to one of Ms. Books laws.
Come to think of it, has anyone successfully deregistered in Florida using the 25 year provision?
Nobody that we know of has successfully petitioned for removal after 25 years.
We know of a few who have gotten removed for Romeo and Juliet and some petitioned over some technicality (one was here fewer than 4 days and was not supposed to register in the first place).
Mj,
i understand your frustration,i don’t like this either, but idea’s or thoughts such as these really do not help our cause. they will continue to throw everything including the kitchen sink at us trying to make us fail. instead of trying to get around these draconian laws, we must continue to do what is required and fight this in court with the help of people like Gail and FAC.
when they see that we are truly trying to follow the rules and ARE sane and rational people who just want a 2nd chance, someday maybe someone in power will take notice to all the waste of time, resources and money being spent on this.
however, if you do as you say, you become another statistic, and another reason why they need more stringent laws.
again, I’n not judging you, just trying to give you another point of view
While my first inclination is to tell the probation people to go to hell when I can travel, your advice is the sensible way to approach the problem. We need to continually pound on the system and show the public just how foolish and harmful these’do-gooder’ bureaucrats are.
Let’s give some of those ‘kids’ in Tallahassee some coloring books and crayons to keep them busy so they will not waste everybody’s time with these totally out of touch proposals. They have obviously done no research and just need to ‘get something on the table’ to make them look productive.
also, i am confused by the wording of this , if you read the HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES STAFF ANALYSIS report, it states …
“According to FDLE, eighteen sheriffs’ offices have three or more consecutive days where sexual
offender or sexual predator registration is unavailable”
if these 18 counties have 3 or more days where registration is not available, how do you comply with the 3 day rule.. doesn’t this truly encroach on our constitution right to freedom of travel by telling us we can ONLY travel when the registration office is open??
Excellent POINT!!!
Please cc [email protected] on your emails to the legislators. If we have to sue over this we want to make sure this was raised.
Duval County SO was closed from December 22nd to the 27th, would they rather have the registration office open on the weekends or on Christmas?