Well, I don't. Too bad. Actions have consequences, amigos. Trolls belong under a bridge. I especially like Javier Diaz' quote, which I've highlighted.
Miami Sex Offenders Live Under a Bridge
By JOHN PAIN, Associated Press Writer
April 6, 2007
MIAMI - Five convicted sex offenders are living under a noisy highway bridge with the state's grudging approval because an ordinance intended to keep predators away from children made it nearly impossible for them to find housing.
Some of them sleep on cardboard raised slightly off the ground to avoid the rats. One of the men beds down on a pallet with a blanket and pillow. Some have been there for several weeks.
"You just pray to God every night, so if you fall asleep for a minute or two, you know, nothing happens to you," said 30-year-old Javier 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 here and elsewhere around the country to bar sex offenders from living near schools, parks and other places children gather. Miami-Dade County's 2005 ordinance _ adopted partly in reaction to the case of a convicted sex offender who raped a 9-year-old Florida girl and buried her alive _ 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."
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.
"This is not an ideal situation for anybody, but at this point we don't have any other options," she said. "We're still looking. The offenders are still actively searching for residences."
But she conceded a point that many experts have made: This "is a problem that is going to have to be addressed. 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."
County Commissioner Jose Diaz said he had no qualms about the ordinance he created.
"My main concern is the victims, the children that are the innocent ones that these predators attack and ruin their lives," Diaz said. "No one really told them to do this crime."
The men must stay at the bridge between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. because a parole officer checks on them nearly every night, Plessinger said.
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 has trouble charging the GPS tracking device he is required to wear; there are no power outlets nearby.
The whoosh of cars passing overhead echoes loudly under the causeway, which runs over Biscayne Bay, connecting Miami and Miami Beach.
About 100 feet away are the bay's blue-green waters, where a family with young children played in the water this week. In the near distance, luxury condominiums rise from the coastline.
Javier Diaz said he and the other men fear for their lives, especially because of "crazy people who might try to come harm sex offenders."
No shit, Sherlock! But what about the kids you molested? Did they not fear for their lives, too?"
The five committed such crimes as sexual battery, molestation, abuse and grand theft. Many of the offenses were against children. The state moved the men under the bridge from their previous home _ a lot next to a center for sexually abused children and close to a day care center _ after they were unable to find affordable housing that did not violate the sex-offender ordinance.
Twenty-two states and hundreds of municipalities have sex offender residency restrictions, according to a California Research Bureau report from last August.
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3 comments:
Martta: Nobody asked you to feel sorry for them. However, and this is a big however, if the point of the regulation is to keep society "safer" by banning them from living near places where children congregate, the regulation is a big, fat failure. Society wants its cake and wants to eat it, too, regarding this issue. We as Americans want to be able to know where these guys are so that we can keep an eye on vulnerable citizens. (Notice the GPS requirement on one of them, which can't even be done properly because there is no electrical outlet.) But we also don't want them in certain sections of town (a totally illegal act, in my opinion), forcing them into areas where we can't track them. So what do we want - to track them and make sure they stay lawful or ban them and make sure they go underground? Society can't have it both ways. And since the coverage of this event has been worldwide and the directions to the locale so specific, how long before some vigilante comes along and kills them? Or the men realize they could be killed and leave?
Society has its blinders on regarding this issue, and politicians in particular have failed to pay attention to those who deal professionally with sex offenders (police and counselors), preferring instead to help their own careers by pandering to the fear in society by relying on emotional regulations, rather than adopting rational, reasonable, and humane regulations which provide accountability to the offenders and safety for the public.
Hypocrisy at its worst!
Annemarie: I respect you right to disagree but your argument still does not address the question: What do we do with them? The rate of recidivism for sex crimes is high; the rate of recidivism for sex crimes against minors is even higher. There appears to be no cure, with the exception of chemical castration and many judges are reluctant to impose that.
I vote to lock them for the rest of their natural lives (case by case, of course. I don't advocate locking away a 17 yo boy who has consensual sex with his 15 yo girlfriend, even if it is against the law).
Now I don't have kids but I think that sex crimes against children is the lowest of the low. If I did have kids, I would be very skittish about known pedophiles living in my midst.
There was a recent case near Savannah, GA, that totally blew my mind. I have live half a century on this earth and I've never heard anything so depraved. Here you had an ENTIRE FAMILY of pedophiles; father, mother and son. A six yo boy was lured to the home, molested by the father and son while the mother watched. The prosecution is seeking the death penalty in this case. Now I am not pro-death penalty but if anyone deserves it, these 3 do. But if any or all are freed by some cockamamie loophole, again, where do we put 'em? I certainly don't want them living in my nabe, do you?
Martta: I answered your question, just maybe not very clearly.
The solution involves getting the issue out of the political arena and into the policy arena where those professionals who don't have a political career to maintain can offer solutions without some grandstanding politician to throw a monkey wrench into it. (Think base closures during the 1990s - it was taken out of the political arena because every U.S. representative or U.S. senator with a base in his or her district was trying to lobby to get their base off the closure list. It ended up being done by independent experts. If they hadn't done that, we would still have military installations everywhere that we didn't need.) Psychologists, law enforcement, social workers, probation and others of this type are who I have in mind. Since becoming interested in this issue due to California's JL campaign last year, I have seen all kinds of people involved, and I tend to believe such groups as the California Coalition on Sex Offending and CAL CASA, a group of 84 victim advocacy centers, over politicians such as George and Sharon Runner who only want to impose additional punishments after the fact.
I do not know what these five individuals did (and I really don't want to know. It's between them and their parole officers.) Yet I know in California, we have 104,000 registrants dating back to 1947 (!) for committing offenses within somce 107 different penal codes. Calling all of these guys and ladies predators is a major mistake. I look at them and I see prostitutes, johns, Romeo and Juliet romancers (statutory rape situations) and many, many family members who offended long ago with no offense since. Of course, I see the others, too. But in this state they don't tell us the date of offense, what the punishment was, how long they have been out of prison, if they ever went, or if they have re-offended since. There is also no risk assessment. There is no way the public can even begin to assess the true dangerousness of many of these.
Also you stated that the rate of recidivism for sex offenders is high. Not true for all types. That is an urban myth propagated by those who support more punishment. True pedophiles and serial child molesters may have multiple victims over many years; many of those on the registries do not. Many were a one time mistake years ago with no offense since. Again, due to the nature of the registries and the lack of information it is virtually imposssible to gleen this information from the California Megan's web site.
If you are looking for the statistics for recidivism rates, look up the U.S. Department of Justice Bureau of Statistics, Jill Levenson, a professor in Florida, and the Jacob Wetterling Foundation (a missing child group) for better information. In fact, Nancy Sabin, executive director of that center, recently denounced all the measures politicians are imposing on sex offenders as wasteful to taxpayers, and not at all conducive to public safety. Jacob Wetterling is a child who was snatched in 1990 and has never been found. His mother, Patty, started the foundation and is now a representative from Minneasota.
One final point - I am sorry this is so long - but the case you mentioned from Georgia has an incredible irony. The little kid killed, Michael Barrios Jr, was killed by a child molesting family. Michael Barrios' father, Chris Barrios, is also a registered sex offender (statutory rape charge from 1994 with no offenses since then) who was forced to move to the out of way trailer park to comply with Georgia's draconian housing restrictions imposed. The experts and indeed law enforcement told Jerry Keene and others it would be a mistake, but they don't listen. (Election Year!) Now a child of a registered sex offender who poses little to no risk has been killed by a high risk sex offender. What is truly amazing about that story is that the early news reports make mention of Chris Barrios' status, while the later stories do not. Having worked in the media, I know why. That fact doesn't fit into the nice, neat little package of an innocent victim's family, so they just choose to ignore it. And the politicians will also likely ignore it Ifurther bans) because it doesn't make a good test case when a state policy got a child killed.
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