A long article that asks tough questions about punishment continuing beyond serving your time. Worth the whole read.
The sparkling blue waters off Miami’s Julia Tuttle Causeway look as if they were taken from a postcard. But the causeway’s only inhabitants see little paradise in their surroundings.
Five men — all registered sex offenders convicted of abusing children — live along the causeway because there is a housing shortage for Miami’s least welcome residents.
Florida’s solution: house the convicted felons under a bridge that forms one part of the causeway.
The Julia Tuttle Causeway, which links Miami to Miami Beach, offers no running water, no electricity and little protection from nasty weather. It’s not an ideal solution, Department of Corrections Officials told CNN, but at least the state knows where the sex offenders are.
Nearly every day a state probation officer makes a predawn visit to the causeway. Those visits are part of the terms of the offenders’ probation which mandates that they occupy a residence from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m.
But what if a sex offender can’t find a place to live?
What’s the point of passing laws in conflict with other laws?
What? What?
This brings to mind one of the prime “equal protection” cases brought before the Supreme Court. And if memory serves me right, that also involved Florida. What is it with Floriduh?
That case, involved a despicable repeat offender – in the case in question – was found guilty because of his past record. In fact, he was in the slammer, once again, the day his case was won. Still, the point of law and Constitution – just like the Bill of Rights – is that unpopular people, criminals, sleazy bastards are entitled to the same rights and protection under the law as everyone else.
I think all these local restrictions will eventually be found unconstitutional and rescinded. While they may have been good intentioned, you can’t tell someone, who has paid his debt in prison, that he can’t live anywhere except under a bridge.
gq – you have to stop this “being reasonable” crap. It’s bad for your reputation. 🙂
anyone else reminded of the children’s story of the troll who lived under a bridge?
#2, who’s paid what debt? The punishment may have been served, but his debt is to the victims… he doesn’t owe me or you anything… and in the case of children’s lives being destroyed by abusers, that debt will probably never be “paid.”
Are we suppose to feel bad for these scum bags? They are probably the lowest form of criminal that exists. I think the state should setup a half way house out on the outskirts of town and only have these people (and I use the term loosely) live there. If you don’t have any neighbours for miles then no chance of children playing around you house.
When you have been a victim of one of these monsters — any adult who would prey on a child and destroy that child’s life FOREVER — you just can’t feel sorry for them. These criminals should never be let out of jail. Study after study show they are NEVER “cured” and most repeat their offense.
I just can’t feel sorry for anything these monsters have to suffer through…
When you have been a victim of one of these monsters — any adult who would prey on a child and destroy that child’s life FOREVER — you just can’t feel sorry for them. These criminals should never be let out of jail. Study after study show they are NEVER “cured” and most repeat their offense. But I guess the victims don’t matter.
I just can’t feel sorry for anything these monsters have to suffer through…
The solution is simple! Change the laws so these people NEVER EVER get out of jail! Their “debt to society” is life imprisonment without the possibility of parol. I wish all problems were so easy to solve.
I love all the lock em up forever comments here. Very black and white. Unfortunately, the justice system is also so. It classifies the 18 year old having consensual sex with his 15 year old girlfriend the same way as the 50 year old hardened pedophile and the 9 year old girl. Are you saying the 18 yr old is a hopeless sicko that must spend life in prison? Hardcore, repeat offenders should be confined, but all too often the black and white legal system goes too far.
While its true that these people are citizens of this country, just like the rest of us – the crimes they have committed are really awful. Now, as a society, how do we respond to that? Do we:
A: Punish them in a way that is so shaming and dregrading (aka the above story) that they kill themselves..
B: Give them years of state-funded/tax-payer-funded psychiatric councelling & assistance untill they are decent, hardworking and contributing members of society.
C: Ship them over to Thailand/South-Asia where there is a rampant sex-trade and ANYTHING and EVERYTHING goes.
D: Thow our sense of civility and intelligence out the window and resort to mob-mentality – and tear them limb from limb.
I’m thinking C or D – but thats just me
also recognize that sex offender does not equal pedophile. You can get arrested and convicted in some areas as a sex offender if you get caught pissing in public. Laws to keep pedophiles away from children need to be much more specific.
I love it when the chickenhawks get distracted from their budweiser and nascar long enough to sing their little “burn ’em all” songs.
Some of these “sex offenders” are probably really bad people who should be segregated from society for the rest of their lives. Most of them, however, are just harmless perverts who got caught whacking off in a public restroom, or 21 year olds screwing their 17 year old girlfriend, or (imagine this) actually innocent people who got caught up by mistakes, childhood fantasies, and overzealous prosecutors.
The thing is, these blanket laws don’t separate the wheat from the chaff. Most of these people don’t deserve life sentences.
ummm, ok… #5, 6, and 7. You obviously didn’t read the article. These guys are being FORCED to live under a bridge as homeless. They HAVE to live within county limits, or the go back to jail. There is no housing that permits them to live in, because of child proximity laws. And yes, when you serve your time in jail, it’s serving your time. If you think they need to stay in jail longer, or something like that, then tell your senator to keep em longer in jail. If you aren’t going to give the ex-con the benefit of the doubt to live their live normally outside of prison, THEY WON’T. If you think our justice system is SO overtly crappy that even after serving their sentence, that ex-cons have to kept away from society, then i’d say, start rooting for capital punishment laws like they have in Texas.
#9, gq,
Well said.
Damn, this must be the fourth or fifth time I’ve agreed with you in the past little while. Keep up the good work.
#14, I know, how weird is that.
The death penalty for individuals convicted of three sex crimes against more than one child would solve this problem.
# 16
the only problem with that solution is that all other crimes that are more violent will have to be made into death penalty cases as well. the conviction rate is lower when the person’s life is at stake and it takes about 30 years on average to execute a person in the country.
also, think about this. the worse the punishment for the felon comiiting a sex crime, the more likely they will kill the victim then leave the person alive.
James Hill why do you hate the Catholic priests?
Looking at the photo, wouldn’t you really hate to be a Nike executive in charge of managing brand awareness and see that famous “Nike Swoosh” on the shoe of a convicted sex offender? “When running from the law, nothing gives me greater speed and comfort than Nike.” I’m guessing that no endorsement deals are in the immediate offing.
This comic relief break has been brought to you by Reebok, the official shoe of non-offenders and decent people everywhere.
->The death penalty for individuals convicted of three sex crimes ->against more than one child would solve this problem.
No it wouldn’t, it would make the individual more likely of killing the victim if they knew that they were going to be executed. This is the same trouble they have had in all three-strike laws.
The problem we have now is that we have so many expensive law enforcement resources diluted, and it still doesn’t take away the fear factor of finding out that your neighbor is a sex offender and child rapist. In addition, communities will start having to pay court costs as the offenders start getting the American Criminal Liberties Union thugs to start defending the right of rapists to live as near to schools and playgrounds as they want, which is a double hit in my opinion. Finally, how are we going to keep them off the Internet when all they have to do is to drive to the nearest Starbucks or go to San Francisco and jump on the free Internet hotspot, where they can’t even be traced, let alone monitored, while they entice our children to their doom?
The sex offender colony is the only solution, in my opinion. All new offenders can be sentenced from 25 to life and spend their days trying to avoid Bubba, and anyone out of the system should be restricted to the colonies. If we have to make a constitutional amendment (perhaps the Sex Offender Residency and Employment Restriction Amendment to the US Constitution, or SORERA), so be it. Let them collude all they want in their demented colony.
Discuss.
Wether or not we should feel sorry for these people is irrelevant; we should instead worry that if society gets away with this then it will try to get away with more.
#2. concurr. internal exile is downright unAmerican and should be unconstitutional.
And these guys HAVE paid their debts. lots of them pled guilty in exchange for shorter sentences – sparing the State the expense of a trial, giving them a guaranteed conviction and sparing the victim the ordeal of testifying – only to find themselves, once out, punished over and above what their plea bargain called for.
And guess what, “lock em up forever” guys? Do that, and NOBODY is going to plead guilty. Do you think the US criminal justice system can actually handle that? that’s why many forward thinking prosecutors oppose mandatory draconian punishments for sex offenders.
Further and – a lot of these guys are innocent, convicted upon the basis of very dubious testimony, particularly that of coached children. To add insult to the injury of a wrongful conviction, they are now exiled from their own communities.
#1 – god
“Still, the point of law and Constitution – just like the Bill of Rights – is that unpopular people, criminals, sleazy bastards are entitled to the same rights and protection under the law as everyone else.”
Sorry, Your Worship, but that ain’t so. The upshot of the American system of law, and the Constitution (which the Bill of Rights is part of, not a seperate thing, BTW) is most emphatically NOT what you claim.
Our system is intended to protect – even at the expense of letting the guilty go unpunished – innocent people from being unfairly punished. The ‘rights of the accused’ exist ONLY to ensure that an innocent wrongly brought into the system does not suffer before his guilt or innocence is determined impartially. If he’s found to have broken the law, he may forfeit certain rights, as provided by statute law.
F’rinstance, a free citizen has the Constitutional right to be free from police entering his home and searching it without probable cause and judicial authorization. A person convicted of a crime and on parole or probation has no such right. The police can waltz in any time and do as they please; his rights have been abridged. In many states, a felony conviction terminates your right to vote. And so on.
Please note that these guys are not all ex-convicts – at least one, and as I understand it, two others, are still on probation / parole. That means he/they’re still under the control of the State of Florida the same as if he/they were in jail or prison – so he/they are not free, and they do not enjoy the rights of other citizens.
Give all the kiddie rapers a home in prison for life. Put them in with the general population who know how to provide the traditional solution. Each of the child victims will spend a lifetime wondering where and from whom the next attack will come from – it is simply poetic justice.
#2 – gquaglia
#14 – gtriamy
#24 – doug
As I told god there, they have not all served their sentences – the guy with the tracking ankle bracelet is still on conditional release. He’s still serving his sentence, as I am told 2 of the other 4 are also, which I have yet to confirm, but which is quite likely…
– – – – – –
#10 – gquaglia
“Unfortunately, the justice system is also so. It classifies the 18 year old having consensual sex with his 15 year old girlfriend the same way as the 50 year old hardened pedophile and the 9 year old girl.”
You’re right to a degree… many places, many times these foul injustices happen. But there are great differences between states, and generally this kind of injustice is concentrated in the Deep South and the Bible Belt.
Now, I’m here to tell you, as a current resident of Texas, such things are sadly all too commonplace here. However, I grew up in Miami, (and in fact, my droogs and I have smoked many a spliff right where that photo was taken – it’s actually got a great view of the Bay, the traffic noise is the only bummer) – and I’ve lived elsewhere in Florida, too.
Florida is not in the Bible Belt. 18-y-os don’t get arrested for sex with their 15-y-o gfs. The cops pretty much gave up on public-men’s room-stings decades ago, when the gay subpop – the 2nd largest in America, after SF – got political. There was one bogus child-molestation case like the Amiraults in MA, about 20 years ago and in the aftermath of it, heads rolled; that kind of railroading on fabricated childrens’ testimony is extremely unlikely to be repeated there…
South Florida is not, whatever it’s faults, nearly as sexually hung up as most of middle America. The justice system in S Florida – which I worked in for years, BTW – has more than enough serious crime to keep it busy – the chance that any of these guys were railroaded or convicted under any irrationally prudish law is just about nil.
So, I’m saying, don’t waste sympathy on these guys. They should be grateful they’re not in Raiford.
I say line em up and shoot em all, let God sort em out. Maybe cut them testicals and hang em up at the edge of town. They way my grampapa did. Non of these gabby trail BS.
Justice, the way we civilized the west from them creepy people! Shoot em all, let God sort em out. God going to sort us out anyway!
#27. these residency restrictions tend to apply lifetime, not just during conditional release or parole. the NYT ran a number of articles about how they have forced many former sex offenders to go off the grid, because there’s nowhere they can live. so instead, they disappear. not helpful from a law-enforcement standpoint.
“that kind of railroading on fabricated childrens’ testimony is extremely unlikely to be repeated there…”
I wouldn’t be so sure. just about any allegations that are raised during a divorce (when a lot of these things come up) are suspect – the aggrieved spouse could be coaching the child. that’s not to say it did not happen, but maybe the perv was brother instead of daddy.
and misidentification in stranger rape cases is not uncommon, with the victims insisting they were correct, even after DNA proves them wrong.
In sum, while sex crimes are heinous, they are also often houses of cards, so lifetime punishment (either prison or exile) is likely to fall harshly on the wrong people.
I have been studying sex offenders for a couple of years now. Here is what I learned 1. Sex offenders are not all the same…incest sex offenders are the easiest to treat. 2. Incest sex offenders do not generally reoffend after treatment/conviction 3. Homosexual sex offenders recommit at a greatest rate. 4. Sex offending is a learned behavior. pedophiles are sex offenders most sex offenders are not pedophiles Pedophiles are turned on by children…..like a sexual orientation, sex offenders of children are seeking control or “safe” affection/sex . They have stunted emotional growth and are fearful of rejection 5. The bad news is Isolation from people causes all offenders stress which increases the risk of reoffending (keeping are friends close and our enimies closer may be looking into )