Restrictions leave five living under bridge in South Florida.....

     I was doing my usual thing and thumbing through a few of my local newspapers and came across this article that I believe is worth sharing. Personally it has forced me to re-think how we handle crime because the last thing I want is for people such as these to be hidden from view. It appears from this article that this is exactly what is beginning to occur. See what you think.

      "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 card board 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 thirty 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 sixteen years of age."
      Okay, now are we beginning to see a problem developing with this type of set up? This is happening in one city, but is this some type of experiment? If this type of sleeping arrangement is successful according to state mandate, will we begin to see them congregate under any number of bridges around the country?
     How are we suppose to protect our most vulnerable among us if these predators are going to be allowed, or should I say sanctioned by the government to go underground?
     "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 nine year old Florida girl and buried her alive, says sex offenders must live at least two thousand five hundred feet from schools."
      I must add, we have one such offender who lives about three or four houses down from us. He is within state required limits as far as not living near a park or a school. However, you just have to ask yourself how safe are your children?
The school age children who do not ride a bus must walk past our street everyday, in the morning and then again in the afternoon. Parading, as a matter of speaking, right past the house where this person lives.
      "The five men under the Julia Turtle 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 do not have any other options," she said. "We are 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 not supervise them because they become so transient, it is not making us safer."
     I do not have the answers either, but perhaps it is time as a society for all of us to revisit this issue and find a better solution than what we now have. Something that will better serve to protect our most volunerable children.