[Anamandy]

What is it with this state and Sexual Offenders/Predators? I've researched crime data and it's horrendous how many sexual offenders/predators are in Florida. What do they do, come from all over the country? It's really frightening how many are in Florida.
In some areas there's so many that it's impossible not to come into contact with several a day. How can you trust anyone to come into your home to do repairs or renovations, or any service for that matter? How can you feel safe even taking a walk - regardless how good the area is?
If they're not from the state why don't state officials throw them out after they've served their time instead of releasing them back onto Fl streets to do more damage. These people can't be rehabilitated. What are the police doing about them? Sorry for the rant, but I can't believe the stats.

[TXRyan23]

Sex offenders are everywhere.

Some states report differently then others and the reason Floridas are so high are due to the strict reporting laws in the state.

Keep in mind, Alot (obviously, not all) of sex offenders in Florida are people that are 20 and date someone that's 17, or someone who's dating a girl (or guy) that lies about their age or even in some cases someone that uses the bathroom behind a tree and gets caught.

Granted, After all of those, Florida does still have a large amount but it's not really that far ahead of other states.

If you actually look at what some of these guys are having to register for, you'll get a better idea.

[TriMT7]

Sex offenders per capita by state:

Map: Registered Sex Offenders By State : NPR

There's also discrepency, however, between how the states "report" their offenders to the public. Some states put only top level offenders. Florida puts EVERYBODY on there, even minor transgressions such as TXRyan mentioned above. IMO, that's not a smart move and takes away and creates unncessary hysteria. It's the ones marked PREDATOR that have to be watched most closely, but it would behoove anyone to check out the crimes each "offender" is reported for to gauge any potential risk.

The Palm Beach billionaire Jeffrey Epstein, for example, lives in a mansion on Palm Beach, and was convicted and shows up as an offender after he was caught soliciting "massage" services from girls who were under 18... creepy, yes, but should you feel unsafe around him or walking by his house? Probably not.

[ferret111]

Like the poster above me said, Florida has a strict reporting system, which makes it seem like we have a lot of sex offenders. It's not like the state is crawling with seedy old men wearing nothing but trenchcoats.

What do you want the police to do about them? You can't force them out of the state. You can only restrict where they live, which is somewhat controversial on its own. If they served their time and are registered, there's nothing the police can do about it.

[mango23]

Originally Posted by Anamandy

What is it with this state and Sexual Offenders/Predators? I've researched crime data and it's horrendous how many sexual offenders/predators are in Florida. What do they do, come from all over the country? It's really frightening how many are in Florida.
In some areas there's so many that it's impossible not to come into contact with several a day. How can you trust anyone to come into your home to do repairs or renovations, or any service for that matter? How can you feel safe even taking a walk - regardless how good the area is?
If they're not from the state why don't state officials throw them out after they've served their time instead of releasing them back onto Fl streets to do more damage. These people can't be rehabilitated. What are the police doing about them? Sorry for the rant, but I can't believe the stats.

Not really, not that many more then most other states. California, Oregon even Wisconsin and Vermont have more.

[Momma_bear]

Originally Posted by Anamandy

What is it with this state and Sexual Offenders/Predators? I've researched crime data and it's horrendous how many sexual offenders/predators are in Florida. What do they do, come from all over the country? It's really frightening how many are in Florida.
In some areas there's so many that it's impossible not to come into contact with several a day. How can you trust anyone to come into your home to do repairs or renovations, or any service for that matter? How can you feel safe even taking a walk - regardless how good the area is?
If they're not from the state why don't state officials throw them out after they've served their time instead of releasing them back onto Fl streets to do more damage. These people can't be rehabilitated. What are the police doing about them? Sorry for the rant, but I can't believe the stats.

There are 10 states with higher rates of sexual offenders than FL. Many of them are states that are considered "safer" than FL by most people. In addition FL has very strict reporting laws coupled with a pretty high age of consent (18/17-depending). That can turn your average horny teenager into a "sexual offender".

[Anamandy]

I don't know guys, most of the pics I saw were of dirty old men. As far as throwing them out of the state, My brother lived in a small town in Arizona for a time and the sheriff there threw people that were making trouble out of our town all the time. Told to get out and don't come back or he would put their butts in jail. They need to create laws in Fl. that if you're convicted of a sex offense and not from Fl. you have to leave the state and not come back on penalty of a stiff jail sentence. A state constitution gives people rights, not a license to do whatever they want.
I think a lot of offenders come to this state because it's warm and because there are a lot of children here. Most of the crimes involved children and forcible rape of women. That's really frightening to me. Strict reporting is fine and dandy, but measures stronger than that should be taken to protect women and children from being preyed upon by these miscreants. If laws were really tough in Florida predators would think twice before even entering the state. Just my opinion.

[Mike1306]

I just posted this in another thread but it is appropriate here also.

Once again the claim that there are so many more sex offenders here. Firstly there are at least 19 states with a higher forcible rapes per capita than Florida. Florida also has one of the best records at registering and tracking sex offenders. I always hear people talk about how many sex offenders are listed for Florida not realizing that some states do not even list all their offenders.

Here is a quote from an older article, the most recent I could find on the subject though.

USATODAY.com - Survey: Many states losing sex offenders

Prompted by an Associated Press investigation that revealed California had lost track of at least 33,000 sex offenders, Parents for Megan's Law contacted all 50 states by telephone to ask about the accuracy of their registries.

It found that states on average were unable to account for 24% of sex offenders supposed to be in the databases. And 19 states, including Texas and New York, said they were unable to track how many sex offenders were failing to register, or simply did not know.

Among the states with the best compliance rates is Florida, where state officials told the group only 4.7% of 27,689 offenders have failed to update their addresses.

Here is another article that shows that Florida is one of only 4 states who have met new federal guidelines for revamping the sex offender tracking system. You think maybe the reason Florida shows more sex offenders is because they are actually doing the job of tracking them?

Few states meet deadline for sex-offender tracking system - Standard-Examiner

But July 2009 came and went without even one state fulfilling its obligation.

Two months later, Ohio became the first state to satisfy its federal requirement. Then, the deadline for other states was reset as July 2010, according to SMART Office documents.

Three other states -- Florida, Delaware and South Dakota -- have since complied.

[Spring Hillian]

As you can see by the above postings, we can't always rely on the "stats".
There is more behind the numbers.

Originally Posted by Anamandy

What is it with this state and Sexual Offenders/Predators? I've researched crime data and it's horrendous how many sexual offenders/predators are in Florida. What do they do, come from all over the country? It's really frightening how many are in Florida.
In some areas there's so many that it's impossible not to come into contact with several a day. How can you trust anyone to come into your home to do repairs or renovations, or any service for that matter? How can you feel safe even taking a walk - regardless how good the area is?
If they're not from the state why don't state officials throw them out after they've served their time instead of releasing them back onto Fl streets to do more damage. These people can't be rehabilitated. What are the police doing about them? Sorry for the rant, but I can't believe the stats.

[Anamandy]

Sorry, but you people must be in the real estate business. There's a reason that there's a glut of housing available in Fl. and trying to hush it up isnt going to help. I've done a sexual predator search all over the country and I was shocked by how many I saw in Fl. That's the offenders that the state knows about. As some people who've contacted me privately informed me, there are plenty of offenders coming to this state that aren't registered. One person told me that a child was molested at the Tampa Zoo the other day by an employee of the zoo and then I just heard about the sex offender sting that nabbed 22 predators in Fl. yesterday. I was also informed that the show, To Catch a Predator, was held more times in Fl than any other state.
People need to be made aware of this problem so that legislators are pressured to create such tough laws that offenders/predators will think twice before even entering Fl. Right now the criminals are in charge in Fl. Unless something is drastically done Fl.'s economy and housing will never fully recover.