A Miami circuit court judge has refused to undo the city's strict local ordinances, which have forced a group of sex offenders to live under a bridge. The ACLU of Florida, which argued against the ordinances, has an interesting page describing life under the Julia Tuttle Causeway. From the Miami Herald:
But Miami-Dade Attorney Tom Logue countered that, if that were true, the Legislature would have clearly inserted the preemption into the statute.
In fact, Logue pointed out, over the past few years, various lawmakers have tried and failed to change the sex offender residency restrictions to make local ordinances more consistent with state law.
That effort -- and its repeated failure to pass snuff in the Legislature -- demonstrates there was nothing in the original statute -- even intended -- that would prohibit municipalities from drawing up their own restrictions.
In the 4 years the Miami-Dade ordinance has been enforced, have their been any individuals living under the Julia-Tuttle Causeway arrested and convicted of a new sexually motivated crime? I keep hearing that pushing sex offenders underground raises recidivism rates, but I have yet to read any concrete evidence of such. I am not trying to defend the ordinance; I am merely wondering if such statistics as recidivism are harder to predict and are used more as political tools than mathematical numbers.
Posted by: Dave | September 29, 2009 at 01:10 AM