Legislators say state may need to ease local sex offender restictions

2-25-2010 Florida:

Leaders of Broward’s cities, towns and villages asked state legislators on Thursday not to scale back local restrictions on where convicted sex offenders may live.

But several Broward legislators said they were reluctant to go along with the municipalities’ request.

Most of the county’s local governments have imposed restrictions preventing registered sex offenders from living within 2,500 feet of places such as schools, school bus stops, day care centers or parks where children congregate.

The result: few places for them to live, leaving pockets of homeless sex offenders.

The most notorious location in South Florida is a colony of homeless sex offenders living under the Julia Tuttle Causeway in Miami. Broward also has a large concentration in Broadview Park, an area near State Road 7 and Interstate 595, surrounded by Plantation, Davie and Fort Lauderdale. Officials have said the neighborhood has the highest concentration of offenders in Broward.

When the spring legislative session convenes next week, one issue on the agenda is preempting local rules on the residency restrictions, possibly overriding some local restrictions and imposing a 1,500 limitation instead.

State Rep. Hazelle Rogers, D-Lauderhill, said the tougher local restrictions sound good, but there are significant side effects.

“These folks, at some time they are out of the penal system. They are out. They’ve served their time and they have to live somewhere,” she said. “Where do we house these people? They have family members that live in our cities, in our counties. Should they live under a bridge?”

More important than such wide bans on sex offenders residencies, Rogers said, is making sure their activities are controlled and that “we know where they are at all times.”

State Sen. Eleanor Sobel, D-Hollywood, said the current restrictions are “creating a bigger problem as we’re witnessing under the bridge in Miami.”

“We know where they’re sleeping, but we don’t’ know what they’re doing during the day,” she said. “Most of us have gut reactions against sexual predators. The lowest of the low in our communities. But to outlaw them so that other cities have to take them…. It is not right. We can’t have a knee-jerk reaction to this. This needs to be a thought out social policy.”

Another side-effect of the increasingly restrictive residency rules in cities, towns and villages is that the few remaining pockets of unincorporated Broward are becoming home to more and more sex offenders, said state Rep. Evan Jenne, D-Dania Beach.

“They very often become rife with child predators,” he said.

State Rep. Martin Kiar, D-Davie, disagreed with his colleagues.

He said the local restrictions are designed to “make sure that these deviants are kept away from our children. These proposals in Tallahassee would weaken your ordinances.”

If the state overrides the city, town and village restrictions, setting a rule prohibiting sex offenders within 1,500 feet of schools and other kid-friendly places, Kiar said, “it will bring these deviants closer to our kids.”

Wilton Manors Mayor Gary Resnick, president of the Broward League of Cities, said as a matter of principle the state shouldn’t meddle in the decisions the local governments have made.

“The solution in every city is going to be very different,” he said. “A one-size-fits-all is not going to work here.” ..Source.. Anthony Man