Forbes reports that because an ordinance intended to keep predators away from children has made it nearly impossible for them to find housing, the five convicted sex offenders are living under a noisy highway bridge with the state’s grudging approval. The five men under the Julia Tuttle Causeway are the only known sex offenders authorized to live outdoors in Florida, said state Corrections Department spokeswoman Gretl Plessinger.
They have fishing poles to catch food, cook with small stoves, use battery-powered TVs and radios and keep their belongings in plastic bags. Javier Diaz, 30, has trouble charging the GPS tracking device he is required to wear; there are no power outlets nearby.
You just pray to God every night, so if you fall asleep for a minute or two, you know, nothing happens to you.
says Diaz, who arrived this week. He was sentenced in 2005 to three years’ probation for lewd and lascivious conduct involving a girl under 16.
The conditions are a consequence of laws passed in Florida and elsewhere around the US to bar sex offenders from living near schools, parks and other places children gather. Miami-Dade County’s 2005 ordinance says sex offenders must live at least 2,500 feet from schools.
“They’ve often said that some of the laws will force people to live under a bridge,” said Charles Onley, a research associate at the federally funded Center for Sex Offender Management. “This is probably the first story that I’ve seen that confirms that.”
Before taking up residence under the causeway, some of the men were initially told to live under the Dolphin Expressway flyover near 12th Street and 12th Avenue. It is used as a parking lot for a courthouse, but it is also across the street from Kristi House, a center for sexually abused children.
Trudy Novicki, executive director for the Kristi House, wasn’t pleased when she learned about her new neighbors while reading the Miami New Times, which first reported the story.
“As a child advocate and someone that treats children that have been sexually abused, my answer is keep them in jail,” Novicki said.
“This is not an ideal situation for anybody, but at this point we don’t have any other options,” said Plessinger. “We’re still looking. The offenders are still actively searching for residences.”
“If we drive these offenders so far underground or we can’t supervise them because they become so transient, it’s not making us safer,” Plessinger said.
Twenty-two states and hundreds of municipalities have sex offender residency restrictions, according to a California Research Bureau report from last August. It states in the executive summary:
“Banishment: to expel from or relegate to a country or place by authoritative decree… to compel to depart.” Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary. Second Edition.
Banishment was a form of legal punishment in Ancient Greece and Renaissance Italy and England. Colonial America received its share of banished English thieves and other offenders, as did Australia. During the American Revolution, the colonies banished English loyalists. More recently, the former Soviet Union restricted inmate’s rights upon release from the Gulag to 101 kilometres from large urban centers, resulting in a number of rural settlements.
Today, some communities in the United States banish sex offenders from living in their midst, resulting in a difficult dilemma: where can these offenders live, and where can they best be supervised and receive treatment, if available?