Monday, April 28, 2014

The end of ‘Bookville’ homeless camp under the Tuttle?

The Julia Tuttle Causeway, one of the major ar...

Where did all the sex offenders go after their eviction last year  from under the Julia Tuttle Causeway? Reporter Robert Lyle’s WLRN radio series  tracked down several former residents of this unlamented monument to the law of  unintended consequences, and we want to add further information.
The causeway colony, the subject of lurid international headlines and a  recent novel by Russell Banks, resulted from local laws that restrict sex  offenders from living within 2,500 feet — one-half mile — from places that  children gather, like schools, parks and school bus stops. In a dense urban  county like ours, there is almost no affordable housing outside these  boundaries. The inevitable consequence of these laws was to force sex offenders  into homelessness.
The state had already passed a carefully-considered 1,000-foot law that would  have allowed shelter for most of the county’s offenders. Furthermore, a  geo-mapping survey proved there were far more registered sex offenders in the  county than affordable housing units outside the 2,500-foot zone. Finally,  social scientists have achieved rare unanimity about two issues: (1) housing  instability increases the risk of recidivism among all offenders, and (2)  residing near a school or park does not increase the already-low recidivism rate  by the vast majority of sex offenders.

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