More on the Miami Homeless Sex Offenders

The national coverage of this story that I blogged about has drawn significant notice around the blogosphere.  At Concurring Opinions, Dan Filler had this to say:

First, I have to put on my critics hat. There is plenty of reason to believe that the residence ordinances are only a piece of the story here. There are surely other places for these folks to live than under a bridge. The problem, I imagine, is that these offenders are poor. Their poverty is presumably related to both their prior convictions (which I suspect make it hard to find a job) and to a broader failure of the social safety net. It may also be related to their mental health, personal preferences, or other social behaviors. The point is, the media frames a nice story (residence restrictions = bridge living) but I have to believe the real narrative is somewhat more complex. (Perhaps the traction of these stories is further evidence that the media is now in mea culpa mode, repenting for its role in promoting the rare but scary stories that produce ineffective and irresponsible sex offender laws.)

Filler goes on to conclude that the laws don't really serve a positive function by making the sex offenders homeless.  However, I would quibble with Filler's conclusions while wearing his "critic's hat."  Florida, more than any other state, has localities that have supplemented already restrictive state laws with some of the harshest local ordinances in the country.  While it is likely that there are areas in and around Miami that fall in gaps in exclusion zones, actual housing can be very hard to find in those areas.  It is likely that these homeless offenders would only be able to afford but the lowest-end of the rental market, single-residence occupancy motels, or would live in a shelter.  So, a bridge ends up being the defacto alternative.  While the picture is certainly "more complex," as Filler suggests, I don't think it is that unusual.  Many offenders are very poor when released and are often socially isolated.  Employment is very hard to come by (even more so in communities with employment restrictions).  While the stories in Miami have gained national attention, they are entirely consistent with other tales across the nation.  The big difference in the Miami case is that government officials seemed to be openly sanctioning the bridge as a place for sex offenders to live.

Meanwhile, Michael Froomkin wonders why the Miami Herald didn't cover this story until after the national media did:

The Miami Herald did something weird this weekend. After weeks of totally ignoring the story about the homeless people forced to live under a bridge because they are sex offenders who are barred from living in the housing they might afford. After the story was first exposed by the New Times, the local alternative weekly (see How Can We Tolerate This? and Bridge to Nowhere), this weekend the Herald finally published something — the AP version of a national story. And nowhere does the Herald mention that it was scooped weeks ago by its local rival.

I presume the Herald ran the AP piece since it was running nationally. But that doesn’t explain the shameful total lack of interest for an entire month. Surely the Herald ought to have someone on this story?

CrimProf Blog also covered the story.

Comments

[Ilah]

I'd have the same quibble. In Iowa, folks who owned their own homes suddenly found themselves homeless because they couldn't afford to maintain TWO homes--one to shelter the family, and one to shelter the registrant--or they couldn't find a single home that both fit the needs of the entire family and the requirements of the law.

There are many registrants who would have had--prior to the laws--resources through family and community that would meet the basic needs of shelter. The law denies them access to those resources.

[ZMan, Atlanta, Georgia]

If anyone in Florida is reading this, get the word out to these guys to try this.. If I lived in Florida I'd buy them the paint and tell them this myself.

I'm thinking now that if the state of Florida is forcing him to call the bridge his home, I think that he should try to make 'his home' as comfortable and livable as he can. Warmer weather is coming and it is going to get awfully hot under the bridge with no power for air conditioning or fans. So, it wouldn't help a whole lot, but if he could paint the 'roof' of his house (pavement on top of the bridge) with some light colored paint (maybe neon green, lemon yellow, florescent orange, some shade of pink, or a pukey color of green/blue/yellow (whatever color puke is)). The light colored paint would reflect the sun's rays and help to keep it a little cooler under the bridge. To do the painting, he probably wouldn't have any money to buy the proper supplies like a big brush or roller, so he could just casually 'sling' the paint out of the bucket onto the pavement. It wouldn't cover the area very well that way and he'd probably run out of paint pretty quick. So, he'd have to go find another bucket or two of whatever light colored paint that he could find and continue this process until he finally had the 'roof' of his 'home' adapted to help keep him cool.

I feel certain that when enough motorists tried to cross the bridge and encountered the wild display of colors all over a portion of the bridge they would be calling into the radio, TV, police stations, and maybe City Hall to find out why the bridge had been painted in such wild colors. Enough people would be calling in to find out what happened that I believe the situation would make the evening news. Of course the police and news people would eventually probably suspect that the guys living under the bridge might have had something to do with it. When this SO guy is finally confronted and asked why he did it, he could tell them the truth by saying "The state of Florida is forcing me to live under this bridge. I wish that I didn't have to live here, and I tried to get the Judge to let me go back to jail, but he said that my 'home' is under this bridge. Well, it's going to get pretty hot 'in my home' when summer gets here so I thought I would try to make 'my home' as comfortable and cool as I can. I thought that if I was to paint 'my roof' with a light colored paint to reflect the sun's hot rays that I could stay a little cooler. Since no one will hire me and I am currently unemployed with very little money, I had to use whatever paint that I could find. I'm sorry if I didn't do a real good job, but if I had been able to get a job and the laws made it possible for guys like me to find decent housing, I wouldn't have had to try to fix up the place that I'm living in now!

I'm pretty sure this guy would eventually end up having to pay for the paint damage to the bridge and would probably have to go to jail. But, that's what he wanted in the first place. If he couldn't afford to pay for damages to the bridge, they'd probably make him stay in jail a little longer. I don't see how the court system could say that he committed another sex offense and therefore violated his parole, but I suppose that ANY kind of crime would wind up being a parole violation. However, hopefully his actions would get enough public attention so that people might begin to realize what these current laws are doing to people. Then, they might begin to see the ridiculousness of the laws and demand that they be changed.
Anyhow, I feel that something needs to be done to get the public's attention so that they can begin to see what SOs have to live with every day.

[Becky]

My brother is awaiting trial for a sex offense in Florida. We live in the midwest. He has been in a wheelchair, paralyzed from the chest down since the age of 10. Never married, very shy,extremely overweight with many health problems,very lonely, no girlfriends ever, except chatting on the internet to women who turned out to be lying and broke his heart. He was arrested for chatting on the internet to a policeman pretending to be 14 in a Sex chatroom for 16 and older. He had no intentions whatsoever of meeting anyone underage-he can't even have sex, and traveling for him is nearly impossible, and definitely undoable on his own! He is still awaiting trial, so he has not even been convicted of ANYTHING, but he was evicted from his low income apartment (he only makes $600 a month on social security), and he was put on involuntary leave from his part-time job at Home Depot. Luckily, he was able to move in with our Mom for now, but it is not a very good situation, but better than under a bridge! When we called the local Social Services trying to find him a place to live, we were told the numbers of the closest homeless shelters in the next state to call, and told, "well, he put himself in this situation." People in this country have the idea that our citizens are always taken care of by someone, and that is NOT TRUE. He has been judged and convicted of something he did not even do, and has essentially been imprisoned for a year before even going to trial. I think we need to start using more Common Sense and less "political correctness" to make some decisions that actually accomplish the right purpose.