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Research by agencies like the Minnesota Department of Corrections has found that a stable home is the strongest guarantor of sound post-incarceration behavior among sex offenders. What's more, Jill Levenson, an expert on sex offenders, says the no-loitering zones are more effective than unreasonable residency restrictions aimed at keeping predators away from kids. "They provide an increased public-safety benefit," says Levenson, a professor of human services at Lynn University in Boca Raton, Fla. "One of the biggest flaws in the residency restrictions is that the offenders couldn't sleep near these places but could wander around...
...keeps the 2,500-feet restriction, but applies it only to schools. It also sets a 300-foot restriction to keep offenders from loitering near anyplace where children gather, which many experts call a more practical solution than harsh residency restrictions. (See "The Unkindest Cut: A Czech Solution for Sex Offenders...
...even the U.S. Congress to craft more-uniform laws to prevent the kind of residency-restriction arms race that Florida let local governments wage. "The safety of Floridians has suffered as local politicians have tried to one-up each other with policies that have resulted in colonies of homeless sex offenders left to roam our streets," says state senator Dave Aronberg, a Democrat running for state attorney general. The excessive rules, he adds, "have the effect of driving offenders underground and off law enforcement's radar." Aronberg is co-sponsoring a new bill that would establish uniform statewide residency rules...
Theoretically, Florida's 1995 legislation should have pre-empted more-severe local ordinances. Yet most state politicians didn't want to be seen as coming to the rescue of sex offenders. Governor Charlie Crist, now a Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate who is facing a more conservative opponent for the GOP nomination, has largely ignored the municipal laws as well as the Julia Tuttle eyesore, even as it has become a cautionary symbol of how restrictions can backfire. (See pictures of crime in Middle America...
Florida Department of Corrections spokesperson Greti Plessinger agrees, saying, "We are glad that [Miami-Dade County] has taken the lead on this." But Miami-Dade is just one of Florida's 67 counties. Eventually the state, and maybe even Washington, will have to assume that lead. Keeping sex offenders under the bridge may be good short-term politics, but it may well threaten the long-term safety of kids...