Back in 2000, my mother and I sat at the end of the driveway, our stemware etched with a Happy New Year and watched the neighborhood kids bang pots and pans and light bottle rockets in welcome of the millennium.
Yep. Sort of Larry the Cable guy-ish, but after all, this is Florida.
We had lived to witness the birth of a new century. All things were possible.
What a difference ten years makes.
Little did I know that forces were at work that would veer life off the path I had always known.
A few short years later, a family member was arrested in an online police sting.
Secretive, inappropriate behavior? Yes.
Travel? Physical contact? No.
We were swept into web of F.S. 800.04., a Florida law I like to call Florida's Rattlesnake.
Lewd or lascivious offenses upon or in the presence of a person under 16.
A solicitation conviction under this law carries the same sentencing weight as if actual contact (presence) took place.
Solicitation is a third degree felony in the State of Florida and allow me to repeat: carries the same sentencing weight of the law as if the act was actually committed.
While I clinked my glass back in 2000, Florida legislators were busy popping open a broad umbrella of what the state considers a "sex offense", legislating restrictions to better "protect children", especially in the aftermath of the tragic murder of nine-year-old Jessica Lunsford: residency restrictions, a sex offender registry with no distinction as to risk level (with no way off, even in death), increased public notification and more frequent offender reporting policies.
The collateral consequences to an RSO's family--persons who had committed no crime--proved incredibly invasive as municipalities adopted the NIMBY attitude, expanding the state buffer of 1000 feet where children gather to beyond and more often than not, 2500 feet.
Our children were forced to live publicly identified in neighborhoods where most wouldn't walk a dog. Our children watched a parent refused job after job after job--not so much because of the status of ex-felon, but because of the listing on the sex offender registry...
...where my loved one--and the loved ones of so many others-hide the faces of the truly dangerous as Florida makes the information (so open to misinterpretation due to the irresponsible posting without no level of risk) immediately publicly and readily available to anyone anywhere.
And then, of course, no discussion of the last ten years would be complete without the human rights disgust known as the Julia Tuttle Causeway, where someone's family members live encamped due to increased residency restrictions that Gov. Charlie Crist, lobbyist Ron Book (Newsweek, A Bridge Too Far, 7/25/2009) and the city of Miami refuse to accept responsibility in creating.
As we put the last ten years thankfully behind us, as my friend NG so eloquently wrote (Epic Fails of the Decade, 12/31/2009), "It's only now that people beginning to realize that sex offender laws are a dismal failure..."
Why now? I'd like to think the total and entire system failings of lost but now found kidnap victim Jaycee Dugard may have helped open the eyes of lawmakers, about truly protecting children via utilization of research-based recommendations-- but honestly, I think it's more about the money, or actually, the basic lack of.
My hopes are we near the end of the rainbow. I'm uncertain as to how these severe policies could become worse.
But I've said that before only to be proven so very wrong.
My friends, on behalf of myself and my family, I thank you all for your efforts on what has become the largest grassroots efforts in this country. As we move forward together in the effort to right the wrongs done against us with a focus to protect all children, I wish you and yours all the wonders of the New Year and beyond.
Every day, you are never far from my thoughts.
:)
Sunny
