FL- Sex Offender Decries Shelter Access Denial

8-17-2009 Florida:

LAKELAND | If a hurricane strikes Polk County, Ulyssess Smith won't be welcome at any of the county's public shelters.

The 33-year-old Lakeland resident is a registered sexual offender.

And while he has served his 10-year prison sentence, Smith still can't shake the stigma of his crime.

"I'm civilly dead," he said. "In a disaster, you find places for animals to go, but not people? You dehumanize me by telling me I can't go to a shelter."

Smith, who maintains he was wrongly accused, said he was released from prison two years ago and has tried to turn his life around. He is married, is the father to three children, the oldest of whom is 9 years old, and has another on the way.

"The real big issue is because I have a family," Smith said of the shelters. "If I didn't have a family, it wouldn't bother me."

Sheriff Grady Judd said Smith's wife, Tara Decosey, and their children are welcome to stay at a public shelter if they need, but Smith must fend for himself.

Smith, who was convicted of raping his ex-girlfriend and other charges in 1996, recently picked up a Polk County Sheriff's Office pamphlet that detailed what sexual offenders should do in a hurricane.

The brochure outlines the limited options for sexual offenders.

If an offender is on probation, they are to contact Florida's Department of Corrections for emergency shelter at DOC facilities.

If they aren't on probation, "As a sexual offender or predator, you will not be admitted to public shelters in Polk County," the pamphlet reads.

"We're not going to let them into our hurricane shelter," Judd said. "They have lost that privilege."

But Judd said this is not a new rule and offenders are notified of their limitations when they register.

"This is something he has known all along," Judd said of Smith. "He needs to stop complaining and find a place to stay."

But Smith argued about why those convicted of other violent crimes, like murder and aggravated battery, would be allowed at shelters and he isn't.

"It's not like I did something to a child," he said.

Judd cited research that shows a high recidivism rate among sexual offenders, as opposed to others convicted of other violent crimes.

As usual law enforcement refuses to accept DOJ statistics, and cannot prove that there is a high, or any recidivism, committed in emergency shelters. The more I study these issues I realize that, under public emergencies the 8th Amendment applies and they cannot chose who is to be saved and who is to be sacrificed.

"The last thing a person or family should have to worry about is if the person sleeping next to them or their children is a sexual offender," Judd said.

The rules for the public shelters are set by the Sheriff's Office and the Polk County School Board.

And because all of Polk's shelters are housed in public schools, the Jessica Lunsford Act prevents sexual offenders from staying there, said Paul Womble, the county's emergency operations program manager.

What? I have read that law and saw nothing as to RSOs and emergency shelters. WOuld someone find it for me IF it exists?

There have been no discussions among county leaders to create any shelter specifically for sexual offenders, he said.

"We don't have any shelters in the county that aren't public schools," Womble said.

Because state law dictates building standards for shelters, few buildings outside of schools meet the criteria.

Until a shelter is created, sexual offenders will have to seek refuge elsewhere in Polk. ..Source.. by Jeremy Maready, THE LEDGER