Not Bothered At All

[Texsox]

MIAMI, Florida (CNN) -- 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.

 

"I got nowhere I can go!" says sex offender Rene Matamoros, who lives with his dog on the shore where Biscayne Bay meets the causeway.

 

The Florida Department of Corrections says there are fewer and fewer places in Miami-Dade County where sex offenders can live because the county has some of the strongest restrictions against this kind of criminal in the country.

 

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?

 

That is increasingly the case, say state officials, after several Florida cities enacted laws that prohibit convicted sexual offenders from living within 2,500 feet of schools, parks and other places where children might gather. (Watch one sex offender describe how he was forced to give up an apartment a href="java script:cnnVideo('play','"/video/us/2007/04/05/zarrella.sex.offenders.bridge.cnn','2009/04/04');','2007/04/05');">)

 

Bruce Grant of the Florida Department of Corrections said the laws have not only kept sex offenders away from children but forced several to live on the street.

 

"Because of those restrictions, because there are many places that children congregate, because of 2,500 feet, that's almost half a mile, that's a pretty long way when you are talking about an urban area like Miami, so it isn't surprising that we say we are trying but we don't have a place for these people to live in," Grant said.

[Rex Kickass]

I do have a problem with legislating homelessness, which is basically what Dade County has done here. Don't get me wrong, I'm totally OK with the idea of giving child sex offenders life in prison - for example - but I'm not OK with the idea of not allowing them to live in an apartment or house once they have completed the punishment the government meted out for them.

[Texsox]

That is the one thing that bothers me is when these laws are used to move these guys to other cities.

[Balta1701]

That is the one thing that bothers me is when these laws are used to move these guys to other cities.

What we need is laws that move them all into 1 city together.

[FlaSoxxJim]

What we need is laws that move them all into 1 city together.

And Snake Plissken can be Mayor.

 

[Gregory Pratt]

To Australia!

 

Yeah, this bothers me.

[maggliopipe]

Seems like a strange law. Presumably they've done their time and in the eyes of the justice system are rehabilitated (or at the very least rehabbed enough to re-enter society). Whether they are or not isn't what important. If the rehabilitation system in place isn't believed to do anything in the way of changing offenders and making them better prepared to flourish in society upon their release, then why not just lock them up for life?

 

I'm not sure if I buy into what I'm saying, but if I was one of those dudes this would be my line of thinking.

[StrangeSox]

I think the idea is that you can never really rehab or reform a pedophile/ child molester. They are always going to have those urges and desires. Keeping them away from children is the best way to prevent them from doing anything again.

 

This doesn't really bother me one bit. Don't molest children and be convicted of a crime, and you won't have a problem. Or, if its that big of a problem in Miami, move elsewhere.

Edited April 6, 2007 by StrangeSox

[Soxy]

Over the past year the area where I live has been facing much of the same problem. I don't feel that bad for them--but this is one of the few topics where my bleeding heart turns to ice.

[CanOfCorn]

I think the idea is that you can never really rehab or reform a pedophile/ child molester. They are always going to have those urges and desires. Keeping them away from children is the best way to prevent them from doing anything again.

 

This doesn't really bother me one bit. Don't molest children and be convicted of a crime, and you won't have a problem. Or, if its that big of a problem in Miami, move elsewhere.

 

They probably can't move if they are under probation. This is a problem and there should be a halfway house for this kind of thing. If you can't find a place to live, that's where you go. It's not ideal...but in lieu of jailing them forever or the ol' snippety snip...what else can you do?

[Rex Kickass]

That's sort of the point. They can't move out of the state definitely, and probably not out of the county either.

[EvilMonkey]

I think the idea is that you can never really rehab or reform a pedophile/ child molester. They are always going to have those urges and desires. Keeping them away from children is the best way to prevent them from doing anything again.

 

This doesn't really bother me one bit. Don't molest children and be convicted of a crime, and you won't have a problem. Or, if its that big of a problem in Miami, move elsewhere.

If you happened to be 17, and having sex with your 17 year old girlfriend, you could be jailed as a sex offender. Just remember, there are some people who get this classification that don't really deserve it. Most do, though, and I have no problem with them having a tough life.

[LowerCaseRepublican]

If you happened to be 17, and having sex with your 17 year old girlfriend, you could be jailed as a sex offender. Just remember, there are some people who get this classification that don't really deserve it. Most do, though, and I have no problem with them having a tough life.

This is indeed true about the classification being very broad for people that aren't necessarily kiddy diddlers. There is a major difference between the case you mentioned and the kind like the perv "Let me put a blindfold on multiple second graders and have them play 'tasting games'!"teacher at Thomas Paine Elementary around here in Urbana.

 

I'd prefer some sort of halfway house or controlled social setting for them upon their release. Making them homeless transients doesn't do anything to help anybody. If the government spent the time not only tracking them for notification purposes but also for medical (both medicine and psychological counseling) help purposes, then things would not only still be controlled for safety purposes but be much more humane.

[EvilMonkey]

This is indeed true about the classification being very broad for people that aren't necessarily kiddy diddlers. There is a major difference between the case you mentioned and the kind like the perv "Let me put a blindfold on multiple second graders and have them play 'tasting games'!"teacher at Thomas Paine Elementary around here in Urbana.

 

I'd prefer some sort of halfway house or controlled social setting for them upon their release. Making them homeless transients doesn't do anything to help anybody. If the government spent the time not only tracking them for notification purposes but also for medical (both medicine and psychological counseling) help purposes, then things would not only still be controlled for safety purposes but be much more humane.

I agree that there is a big difference between the two, which is why i don't really cares what happens to the 'kiddy diddlers', as you put it. I fear I would end up in jail if someone did anything like that to either of my kids. I have no sympathy for them. However, I guess since we can't keep them locked up, they do need some place to go, so a halfway house of some sort could work, and be cheaper than prison, and easier to monitor.

[Texsox]

this is one of the few topics where my bleeding heart turns to ice.

 

That is perhaps the best turn of a phrase I've read here in a long time. And so true.

[StrangeSox]

This is indeed true about the classification being very broad for people that aren't necessarily kiddy diddlers. There is a major difference between the case you mentioned and the kind like the perv "Let me put a blindfold on multiple second graders and have them play 'tasting games'!"teacher at Thomas Paine Elementary around here in Urbana.

 

I'd prefer some sort of halfway house or controlled social setting for them upon their release. Making them homeless transients doesn't do anything to help anybody. If the government spent the time not only tracking them for notification purposes but also for medical (both medicine and psychological counseling) help purposes, then things would not only still be controlled for safety purposes but be much more humane.

 

What???

 

 

If you happened to be 17, and having sex with your 17 year old girlfriend, you could be jailed as a sex offender. Just remember, there are some people who get this classification that don't really deserve it. Most do, though, and I have no problem with them having a tough life.

 

If you're both 17 I don't think its illegal. One of you'd have to be a legal adult and the other a minor, right?

 

Yeah, our statatory rape laws need to be refined. I remember ESPN running a story a few months ago where a star student athelete who was a senior got 10 years in jail for getting a BJ from a sophomore.