(The Center Square) – Keeping track of homeless sex offenders is becoming a tougher task for law enforcement officials, says a report by the Florida Legislature’s research arm.
The report by the Office of Program Policy Analysis and Government Accountability says 7% of registered sexual offenders and 12% of sexual predators list a transient address, meaning they’re likely homeless. These offenders are located in 49 of the state’s 67 counties.
The Florida Department of Law Enforcement’s sex offender registry lists more than 86,000 offenders and predators. More than 30,000 on the sex offender registry reside in Florida communities while 63% are either confined or do not live in the state.
Under state law, sex offenders convicted of a crime against a victim less than age 16 are banned from living within 1,000 feet of any school, child care facility, park or playground and required to check in with local authorities periodically.
Local governments can also institute increased prohibitions, with 196 local sex offender ordinances. Most of those are in cities (129, or 31% of municipalities), but 48% of counties (32) have at least one of these ordinances.
These can include 2,500-foot prohibitions from offenders living near any place where children can gather. Five counties have ordinances governing sex offenders and their use of emergency shelters.
According to the report, several sheriffs’ offices stated that contacting homeless offenders was difficult because they frequently moved.
Transient offenders are required to check in every 30 days with the county sheriffs’ offices, a law passed by the Legislature in 2014. Not doing so can get the offender charged with a third-degree felony.
One reason cited by the report from county sheriffs’ offices is that residence restrictions by local governments play a role in sex offender homelessness.
Broward and Miami-Dade counties have the highest rates of homeless sex offenders and predators with 34% and 31%, respectively.
The report says arrests for offender registration violations have increased by 38% over the past 10 years – from 1,612 arrests in 2014 to 2,200 in 2023 – but conviction numbers haven’t increased. The conviction rate was 60% in 2014 and 45% in 2022.
The report says the “decline in conviction rate is reflective of the overall decline in prosecution rates for registration violation offenses.”
According to the report, Florida is one of 18 states substantially compliant with federal sex offender registry requirements.
Since 2021, 2,500 offenders have been removed from the sex offender registry, which is permissible under state law under certain circumstances. Most of those removed from the registry were dead.
