Homeless Sex Offenders in Miami Revisited

I blogged about this story a while ago and it looks like the major media and blogs have noticed it as well.  For most of the day today, CNN.com's headline story was about the unusual situation of some sex offenders living under a bridge in Miami.  CNN's coverage added some sad details:

With nowhere to put these men, the Department of Corrections moved them under the Julia Tuttle Causeway. With the roar of cars passing overhead, convicted sex offender Kevin Morales sleeps in a chair to keep the rats off him.

"The rodents come up next to you, you could be sleeping the whole night and they could be nibbling on you," he said.

Morales has been homeless and living under the causeway for about three weeks. He works, has a car and had a rented apartment but was forced to move after the Department of Corrections said a swimming pool in his building put him too close to children.

The convicted felons may not be locked up anymore, but they say it's not much of an improvement.

"Jail is anytime much better than this, than the life than I'm living here now," Morales said. "[In jail] I can sleep better. I get fed three times a day. I can shower anytime that I want to."

Morales said that harsher laws and living conditions for sex offenders may have unintended consequences.

"The tougher they're making these laws unfortunately it's scaring offenders and they're saying, 'You know what, the best thing for me to do is run,'" Morales said.

Jeralyn Merritt, who is one of the few major bloggers who has shown an interest in sex offender issues, is covering the story at TalkLeft.  And SexOffenderIssues has posted about it as well.  I think it is significant that this story is getting such widespread attention.

Comments

[Gideon]

Just saw it - I'm going to post about it as well. I joked about this outcome many months (or even years) ago, when residency restrictions were first coming to the fore.

I'm embarrassed to have been "proven" prescient.

[jvarisco]

Supporters of residency restrictions should just be honest and banish them period, or mandate indefinite civil commitment. Then we can have the constitutional showdown, probably win, and be done with it.

[Michael]

More likely, though, is that they will come up with an amendment to the Constitution where sex offenders would have to live and work for their entire registration period. I actually believe it's called SORERA, or Sex Offender Employment and Restriction Amendment to the US Constitution, but I can't find a link to it. When I do I'll post back.