Why Sex Offender “Clustering” Happens, and Why Anti-Clustering Laws Make it Worse
For years, legislators have enacted Sex Offender Residency Restrictions (SORRs), prohibiting people on the registry from living within 1,000, 2,000, or even 2,500 feet of places where children congregate, such as schools, parks, playgrounds and daycares. These laws sound simple in theory, but in practice they leave only tiny slivers of land available for housing. The result is predictable: registrants “cluster” in the few remaining areas where they are legally allowed to live. The most infamous example was the Julia Tuttle Causeway encampment in Miami-Dade County. Harsh residency restrictions passed in the City of Miami Beach drove out the registrants to mainland Miami. When Miami passed their SORR, it drove them back. The result left almost no legal housing in either Miami Beach or Miami, forcing dozens of registrants to live under a bridge between the two cities. Media coverage was harsh, but the reality was this: people complied with the law the only way they could — by clustering in the only place where the law permitted them to exist. Ironically, many of the same lawmakers who championed residency restrictions later complained about the visible consequences they created.
The same problem spread throughout the State of Florida. Imagine City “A” enacts a 2,500-foot SORR. The exclusion zones overlap to the point where nearly all residential areas become off-limits. That leaves people with virtually nowhere to live in City A. Because housing is effectively banned in City A, people displaced by the law migrate to the nearest area where restrictions are not as severe — often the neighboring City “B”. When City B suddenly has a higher concentration of registrants, local officials and residents panic. In response, City B passes its own SORR to prevent what they see as the “dumping” of registrants in their community. This cycle repeats itself. Each new restriction shrinks the map further and pushes people into smaller and smaller corners. Because these small pockets of availability often exist only in industrial zones or because the limited number of residential units gets quickly consumed by the high demand from registrants, many are forced to live homeless in the area.
The latest development is that some counties are trying to solve the “clustering” problem with anti-clustering ordinances. Last month Putnam County passed a law barring registrants from living within 500 feet of one another. On its face, this may seem like a solution, but in reality it shrinks the already limited housing supply even further.
Let’s break down the Math…
A 500-foot buffer applies in every direction from a registrant’s property line. This is measured “as the crow flies” — a straight line across any terrain. Imagine drawing a circle with a 500-foot radius from the property line around one registrant’s home. That circle covers about 785,000 square feet, or 18 acres of land. Now imagine placing another registrant nearby, in the same area that used to be lawful. Together, two registrants block off nearly 36 acres of otherwise lawful housing area. If you want to visualize that, it’s 27 football fields.
As more registrants are placed in a county, these exclusion zones multiply like overlapping bubbles, consuming huge portions of the map. What SORRs did to housing availability (severely reduced it), anti-clustering laws erase it. Remember those 22 registrants who were displaced from the Putnam County trailer park in February? Well Putnam County would need to find an area equivalent to 4 times the size of Disney World for them to have a legal place to live – and that’s assuming there are no schools, parks, playgrounds or bus stops within 2500 feet of that area, or no other registrants already living there!
So getting back to the latest developments… Legislators who once championed residency restrictions are now decrying the clustering and rampant homelessness their own laws created. By doubling down with anti-clustering rules, they will only worsen the problem they claim to solve. When the legal map leaves nowhere else to go, registrants are pushed into homelessness, transience, or makeshift encampments — conditions that destabilize individuals and reduce public safety. Remember that registries and residency laws were sold to the public as tools for safety. Instead, it’s been a cycle of failure: one harmful law breeds another, each making reentry more difficult and communities less safe.
So what’s the path forward?
Restrictive housing laws don’t make communities safer, they create visible crises. Now, anti-clustering ordinances like Putnam County’s are just the next step down the same failed path. FAC is organizing a lawsuit to challenge the Putnam ordinance. We have to do it. It is important not only to address the legal and practical issues with that County’s ordinance, but to dissuade the “City B”s that neighbor Putnam from passing something similar. At the same time, we NEED you to check your County and City/Town/Village Commission meeting agendas every month to see if a SORR is on the agenda. We need to get ahead of these things proactively, rather than having to file suit after the fact.
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Okeechobee county isn’t any better. Unless married, or family, their SORR is only 1 per household (aka property). I believe they also have a 2500′ rule as well.
This is a case where they make laws that cause registrants to become ‘geographically incarcerated’ confining them to certain locations and when that happens they whine, moan, and complain about the consequences of the very laws they created.
I’ve checked my city/county’s agenda for anything related to the registry and thank the Lord there’s nothing so far.
Has anyone ever played a PubG style video game before? In the game everyone starts out in a buffer zone and every couple of minutes the zone shrinks and the players are forced to the center of the map. The residency restrictions are very similar to that.
Our residency restrictions expand, No end.
BTW – can you please contact [email protected] and volunteer to check the ordinances in your county/city? If we can get one volunteer in all 67 counties it would make our lives MUCH easier.
I’ll look up my county and the cities within to verify ordinances 👍
I can teach folks how to look up their city/county ordinances. It is actually not that hard to do.
Most of FloriDUH’s city/county ordinances are online. You can type name of ciy/county into your search engine of choice along with the word “ordinances” or “municipal code”, or you can go to the city/county gov’t website, and there’s usually a link. (If you’re lucky, they’re using eCode360, Municode, or American Legal Publishing to host their codes since they have a search function)
Once you find the code, then if the site has a search function you may fave to type in words like “sex”, “sexual” “predator” “feet of” or ‘school” to find it. (Some searches are so precise, sex won’t pull up sexual, that’s why i suggest both, as one place may say sex offender the next may say sexual predator). If the ordinances aren’t online you can contact the city clerk or the local registry office if they have a list of restrictions throughout the county.
If the site lacks a search bar, then you will have to scan for it yourself; restrictions are usually found under titles like “public safety” or “Offenses and/or Nuisances” but can be anywhere.
If you DO see one see who it applies to, what the distance is, if there are other restrictions like Halloween or anti-clustering laws, and if there are any exceptions. Some restrictions may be in different locations, like job/license bans.
Definitions are important. What’s a “designated SO”? The ordinance may only apply to SVPs or those with offenses against those under a certain age. If it is a county law is the ordinance applied countywide or only to unincorporated areas? That is all there is to it, really.
We could set up a workshop on it. I already made a Powerpoint presentation that can be used for this purpose.
To get ahead of these things proactively, check your County and City/Town/Village Commission meeting agendas every month to see if a sexual offender ordinance is on the agenda.
FAC Contributor #12
September 27, 2025
“To get ahead of these things proactively, check your County and City/Town/Village Commission meeting agendas every month to see if a sexual offender ordinance is on the agenda.”
This +1. The smaller the community, the less likely it will make media headlines. You must know whether or not you live in an incorporated community or not. If you live in an incorporated city, you must watch both your city and your county websites for any upcoming announcements. If you live in an unincorporated area you need only to watch your county, although you should check out any incorporated communities around you an report it to FAC.
If you use social media, watch posts from community pages. Sometimes it is a local person or group making noise that compels local governments to pass local level legislation.
If there’s no existing law, they may pass one. If there’s an existing law, they may modify it at any time. Nothing is etched in stone.
@FAC
I was just wondering, I know there is NARSOL and some others, but I have never heard of another Florida action committee like website such as for example New York action committee or any other state that has their own group like F.A.C that stands up for their state’s registered citizen’s rights?
Just was wondering if we are the only state that has something similar, and again not NARSOL. Are you aware of any other state that has such an organization for offenders? If not, I guess that is why so many out of staters come on here. (And we do welcome them all)
Here are other state’s orgs: https://floridaactioncommittee.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/RSOL-Affiliates.pdf
@FAC
WOW! I had no idea there were any other ones, and REALLY didn’t know how many states have sites, especially the large list you sent me. I wonder if F.A.C was one of the first to come out.
Glad some of the other states are not alone.
If not for FAC, a lot of registrants would be in jail or prison for violating ordinances that would not have been challenge if there was no one to do so.
I watched a TikTok streamer interviewing homeless people and asking where the homeless have gone.
The homeless man said “I seen government vans pull up to homeless encampments in the middle of the night. They push people into the vans, and they are never seen again.”
It seems to me that this legislation is intended to push PFRs into homelessness and then perhaps PFRs will start to slowly disappear. Nothing surprises me at this point.
One of the problems is that the public still believes our government and believes that everyone the government calls a sex offender is a dangerous monster! There are so few of those in reality and those that are, remain in prison until they are too old to be a threat, or they haven’t been caught yet so they don’t have any residency restrictions! Meanwhile people’s lives are trashed and destroyed by the residency restrictions, including the families of those on the SORR.
Instead of focusing all their attention on the registry and who is on it, the public needs to focus their attention on those who are closest to our children. The news says it all. Teachers, coaches, clergy – are the ones we need to be wary of and TALK TO OUR CHILDREN about what to watch out for.
I agree with what you said, Mary. I am a registrant. However, I grew up in the 1970’s in Ohio. I don’t know how long the registry has been around, but my parents pulled myself and my brother and sister to a side (at different ages) and explained that a registrant lived next door. Details were never given. However, we were made to understand to NEVER be alone with the man and to NEVER go into the house–even with others.
We were neighbors for nearly two decades. In reflecting back, the man kept to himself and didn’t bother anyone. The cops would occasionally stop by, but everyone in the neighborhood understood why and what for.
A big deal was made of it, yet not a big deal, if you follow me. Everyone in the neighborhood knew about it and cautioned their children, but nobody burned crosses in his front yard, posted signs, or anything else.
The key was having a rational talk with the young ones in the area and explaining as best they could about not being alone. That way of thinking doesn’t seem to be as prevalent as it was back then.
One thing that I was grateful for was during my sentencing the judge didn’t put any prohibitions on me as far as where I live or being anywhere where minors congregate. The only prohibition that I got was I couldn’t use the internet for 2 years.
they literally gave my son the address of an orange grove when he got out of jail, making my family put him in an approved hotel that cost $100 a day. the truth is that Florida just wants sex offenders to not exist. It’s all a money making scheme by the local
sheriffs to keep fleecing these guys and their loved ones. i hate it.