Mayor Seeks to Make City A Sex Offender-Free Zone [View All]

[Freddie Stubbs]

Proposed measure to expand "buffer zones" is sailing to quick enactment

By MANUEL ROIG-FRANZIA
The Washington Post

MIAMI BEACH -- Sprinkled among the pulsing dance clubs, flashy cars and all-night, everynight glitter of this adult playground are pockets of another world. There are 15 schools and 38 parks in this gangly, 71/2-milelong barrier-island city, each pulsing with a sound of its own: children's voices.

Miami Beach Mayor David Dermer is close to building a virtual wall around the children, rewriting municipal law to almost entirely block registered sex offenders from moving into his city. If Dermer succeeds -- his proposal was passed unanimously in the first of two required votes -- experts say Miami Beach would have one of the most restrictive sex-offender policies in the United States.

Dermer's measure would more than double the buffer zone required between the homes of registered sex offenders and schools, parks, school bus stops or any "place where children regularly congregate." It is one in a flurry of proposals inspired by the arrests of registered sex offenders in the separate killings of two central Florida girls whose bodies were found one month apart.

The slayings of 9-year-old Jessica Lunsford and 13-year-old Sarah Lunde have led to proposed state laws that would require lifetime monitoring of some sex offenders by global satellite positioning systems, mandatory quarter-century prison terms for sex offenses against children younger than 12, and automatic jailing of sex offenders who violate probation until a judge can determine whether they represent a threat.

more: http://www.theledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050426/NEWS/504260408/1004