Lawmakers now vow to go crazy over a sensationalized news article that failed to fully inform the public and lawmakers of all the facts.8-25-2013 Florida:
State legislators promise to overhaul sex offender laws in response to a Sun Sentinel investigation last week that found Florida has failed to stop hundreds of rapists and child molesters from attacking again.
In the Florida Senate and House, leading lawmakers now are working on legislation to toughen sentences for sex crimes and keep more of the most dangerous offenders confined after their prison terms end.
Senate President Don Gaetz vowed action the first week of the legislative session that begins in March.
"As a state, we need to come down very hard on the side of strengthening the laws and not letting bad people who have done these horrible things out onto the street," Gaetz told the Sun Sentinel in an interview. "After reading your series, this issue moves to the top of my priorities."
Changes under consideration include:
• Imposing mandatory minimum sentences for more sex crimes."In the entire Legislature, everybody will be on board to do something," said state Sen. Eleanor Sobel, a Hollywood Democrat. "It's just a clear-cut, horrible shame on our society, what's happening to innocent people."
• Confining more predators after their release from prison.
• Converting unused prison beds to expand the capacity of the state's sex predator treatment center.
The Sun Sentinel's "Sex Predators Unleashed" series documented shocking failures in a law that allows Florida to keep sex offenders locked up after they finish their prison sentences. Named in memory of a South Florida boy who was raped and murdered, the Jimmy Ryce law requires the state to evaluate convicted sex criminals before their release and to recommend predators — those with a mental disorder that makes them likely to reoffend — for lockup at a treatment center in Central Florida.
In the 14 years since the law took effect, the Sun Sentinel found, at least 594 offenders reviewed and let go were later convicted of a new sex crime in Florida. Forty percent attacked within a year of their release — some the very same day. These offenders molested more than 460 children, raped 121 women and murdered 14.
"What I think your series has uncovered, and it's been a great service to the people of Florida, is the holes in the Jimmy Ryce Act are gaping," said state Rep. Matt Gaetz, the Senate president's son and chairman of the House Criminal Justice Subcommittee. "We've got to plug those gaps, and I don't think we should stop there."
The Fort Walton Beach Republican is considering tougher punishment for sex crimes.
Only two sex crimes now come with mandatory minimum sentences. Molesting a child under 12 calls for 25 years, and raping a child under 12 requires life in prison. Punishment for other sex offenses varies depending on factors including the convict's record.
"I'm supportive of extremely high mandatory minimum" sentences for sex crimes, Rep. Gaetz said.
Lawmakers also are considering expanding capacity of the treatment center for sex predators, the Florida Civil Commitment Center in Arcadia, by using empty prison beds.
"If we need to spend money to have more civil commitment facilities so that sex predators are behind bars instead of on our streets, then we will do it," Rep. Gaetz said. "Our focus on sexual predators is going to be supercharged."
Lawmakers across the state said they were shocked by the newspaper's findings that hundreds of sex offenders released under the Ryce law had gone on to hurt more woman and children, many horrifically. Victims of the repeat offenders include a college student tortured to near-death, a great-grandmother raped and shot in her own bed, and an elderly woman who was sexually assaulted and had her throat slit by a rapist released just three months earlier.
"That's about as heinous as it gets because it's a crime that is not only very damaging physically and life-threatening, it's a crime that is humiliating and degrading and just destroys people emotionally," said state Rep. Dennis Baxley, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. "That kind of victimization has to be stopped. Our first responsibility is public safety."
The Ocala Republican said some offenders with sexual disorders can't be cured.
"There's no doubt in my mind that while we don't want to cast the net so far that we are condemning people to confinement forever that are not a threat, we certainly want to do everything we can to avoid any predator from being let loose on society," Baxley said.
Sen. Gaetz, R-Niceville, said the Sun Sentinel series revealed failures not only in the Jimmy Ryce law but in the entire criminal justice system.
"The mission of this state should be crystal clear — to make Florida the safest possible place for children and the worst place for child molesters," the Senate president said. "That most assuredly will deal with sentencing. I'm prepared to spend additional money to keep truly horrible people behind bars."
He said the Ryce law needs refocusing to identify and confine more predators. "However the Legislature strengthens the law, and believe me we will strengthen the law, we have to radically change the administration of the law," Sen. Gaetz said.
The state Department of Children & Families is responsible for evaluating sex offenders under the Ryce law and deciding which ones are predators who should remain confined at the treatment center. The Sun Sentinel found the agency applies a narrow definition of a predator and has recommended fewer and fewer inmates for confinement, giving Florida the lowest referral rate of 17 states with similar programs.
Last year, Broward received just one new referral case, and Palm Beach County none.
"Something is definitely wrong," said Sobel, chairwoman of the Children, Families and Elder Affairs Committee.
Lawmakers also are studying recommendations that experts made to the Sun Sentinel, including tracking offenders released under the Ryce law to identify those who are re-arrested.
"Clearly, establishing better monitoring of what's happening would be very instructive," Baxley said.
Another proposal under consideration is requiring supervision of offenders identified as sexually violent predators after they're released from the treatment center, easing them back into society through supervised housing and continued treatment. Now, they're monitored only if they're still on probation from a criminal charge. Some are not even on the state sex offender registry.
"There should be some level of step-down and not just say, 'One day you need commitment and then some time later you don't need anything,'" said Rep. Janet Adkins, R-Fernandina Beach.
Adkins is hosting a meeting Sept. 4 in Jacksonville to examine sex offender laws following the June abduction, rape and murder of 8-year-old Cherish Perrywinkle. Police have charged registered sex offender Donald J. Smith in her killing. Smith had been released from jail three weeks earlier and was visited by a detective on a sex offender address verification check the morning Cherish disappeared.
"Less than 24 hours later," Adkins said, "you've got a little girl who's dead."
Gov. Rick Scott said Florida needs to do a better job of stopping sex offenders from hurting more women and children. "If we need to make changes to the law, that's what we're going to work on," he said.
Influential lobbyist Ron Book, who has advocated tougher sex offender laws for more than a decade, said the Sun Sentinel's findings provide evidence that until now had been lacking.
"Now we have data to substantiate and support what we have been saying," said Book, whose daughter was a victim of sexual abuse by a nanny. "It's going to help make not just a difference, but a monster-size difference."
Jill Levenson, a Lynn University professor and sex offender researcher, said the heinous crimes uncovered by the Sun Sentinel are unacceptable but rare.
The newspaper's research indicates less than 10 percent of all offenders reviewed under the law have been arrested again on sex charges in Florida, and a recent study by Levenson of sex criminals released from Florida prisons found a 14 percent re-arrest rate after 10 years.
"It is naive to think that we can prevent all repeat crimes," she said. "Before passing new laws, these tragic cases should be thoroughly examined so that the [sexually violent predator] program, probation officers, treatment providers, and court officials can identify areas where specific policies or procedures can be improved."
A Brevard County woman who was raped and tortured by a freed sex offender said Florida's victim count is too high to ignore. She cried when told of plans to strengthen the state's sex offender laws.
"Guys like that need to be locked up way longer. You've got petty criminals out there who are serving harsher sentences," said Victoria, who asked that her last name not be disclosed. "This brings peace to my heart." ..Source.. by Sally Kestin, Sun Sentinel
No comments:
Post a Comment