FL- Bill McCollum: Sex-offender bans are faulty

8-4-2009 Florida:

State Attorney General Bill McCollum is advocating a sweeping overhaul of local ordinances that ban sex offenders and predators from living within 2,500 feet of schools.

Republican Bill McCollum has made a career out of being tough on crime, first as a congressman agitating against Islamic terrorists and more recently as the state attorney general crusading against Internet sex predators.

Yet in a recent interview on Spanish-language radio in Miami, McCollum said ``it's very wrong'' that sex offenders have been relegated to living in squalid conditions under the Julia Tuttle Causeway in Miami-Dade. He said local governments that ban offenders from living within 2,500 feet of schools are ``responsible for making this much more difficult, and they need to change their ordinances.''

McCollum's remarks on Univision's WQBA-1140 AM on July 22 contradict the position taken by Republican Gov. Charlie Crist, who said last week that he wanted to be ``respectful'' of local ordinances that go farther than the state's 1,000-foot buffer zone around schools.

``The state law is fairly reasonable, but many counties and many cities have made it impossible for anybody to live. . . in a normal living environment,'' McCollum told interviewer Bernadette Pardo. ``It's very wrong.''

Some political strategists say McCollum's hard-line, conservative image could be a liability in his gubernatorial campaign against Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink, who would be the state's first female chief executive. McCollum was the only Cabinet member to vote against reforms aimed at helping ex-felons to get their voting rights back.

Ron Book, the chairman of the Miami-Dade Homeless Trust who has been trying to find housing for the squatters under the bridge, noted McCollum's record is ``extraordinarily strong'' on child molesters and other law-and-order issues.

``I'm a little surprised at the attorney general's comments because, in my opinion, I don't think it's the 2,500-foot ordinances that created the problem,'' Book said. ``If the attorney general thinks local governments are going to repeal their ordinances, he's not accurate . . . We're talking about people who have been accused and convicted of sexual deviant behavior.''

Since 9-year-old Jessica Lunsford was raped and murdered in a Central Florida town in 2005, a slew of local governments have sought to exile sex offenders from areas near schools and parks. Critics charge that the irregular patchwork of laws has forced sex offenders underground and made it harder for law enforcement to monitor them. The group of roughly 70 convicted offenders living under the Miami-Dade causeway without toilets or running water has sparked national debate.

In the radio interview, McCollum noted that local restrictions fail to consider differences in the severity of the crimes. ``Some of the people who are listed as sex offenders under state law and people are afraid of haven't committed the same serious crimes that you and I think of,'' he said. ``The law needs to be changed.''

McCollum appears to be siding with the American Civil Liberties Union, which is suing Miami-Dade over its 2,500-foot rule. The attorney general clashed with the ACLU over the state's clemency laws in 2007.

``He may not like to hear us say this, but good for Bill McCollum,'' said Howard Simon, executive director of the ACLU of Florida. ``Any law that treats the guy that urinates on the side of the road or the 17-year-old with the 15-year-old girlfriend the same as someone who violently assaults a young person -- it's a stupid, irrational legal system, but that's what we have in Florida.''

Both the attorney general's office and McCollum's campaign declined requests for comment, citing the city of Miami's lawsuit against the state over the sex offenders' camp. ..Source.. by BETH REINHARD