CALL TO ACTION: Wording has been changed in HB 1085 and NOT for the better

Dear Members and Advocates,

CALL TO ACTION: Wording has been changed in HB 1085 and NOT for the better

This Wednesday (March 15) at 3:00 pm this proposed committee substitute (PCS) will be considered. Make your calls today or leave messages after hours.

HB 1085 is in the House Transportation & Modals Subcommittee where the wording has been changed.

The original bill stated: “shall have all personal information printed on the front of the license or identification card in the color red.”

The revised bill states:   “shall have printed in the color red all information otherwise required to be printed on the front of the license or identification card.”

This change in HB 1085 occurs in lines 805-814.

This Wednesday (March 15) at 3:00 pm this proposed committee substitute (PCS) will be considered. Make your calls today or leave messages after hours.

 

Of the Utmost Importance:  Aides for members of the House Transportation & Modals Subcommittee are NOT receiving many calls on this bill.  The aides say that calls are more effective.  Emails are not always read in time.

 

PLEASE do the following:

  • Call all members of the House Transportation & Modals Subcommittee.
  • Whether you talk to a person or voicemail, you must give your name and contact information (phone numbers work).  Remember that all voicemails are checked, so you can call after hours.
  • State that you oppose the part of the bill that would require the red lettering on driver’s licenses for people on the registry
  • Mention that you are a constituent if you happen to live in the representative’s district.
  • Give two brief reasons why you oppose the red lettering on the licenses.  (Refer to the previously posted Call to Action for HB 1085 at the FAC website for talking points.)
  • Ask family members and friends to also call to oppose the red lettering.

 

House Transportation & Modals Subcommittee for HB 1085:

1.  Fiona McFarland (Chair) (850) 717-5073
2.  Tom Fabricio (Vice Chair) (850) 717-5110
3.   Yvonne Hayes Hinson 850-717-5021
4.  Robert Alexander Andrade (850) 717-5002
5.  Kristen Aston Arrington (850) 717-5046
6.  Douglas Michael Bankson (850) 717-5039
7.  Fabian Basabe (850) 717-5106
8.  Jervonte Edmonds (850) 717-5088
9.  Anna Eskamani (850) 717-5042
10. Tiffany Esposito (850) 717-5077
11. Jennifer Harris (850) 717-5044
12. Vicki L. Lopez (850) 717-5043
13. Lauren Melo (239) 417-6270
14. Kiyan Michael (850) 717-5016
15. Angela Nixon (850) 717-5013
16. Juan Carlos Porras (850) 717-5119
17. David Smith (850) 717-5038
18. Paula A. Stark (850) 717-5047

 

Talking points – These are Facts that can be supported by evidence, studies and research

  • There are currently 52 registry requirements for people on the sex offense registry.  Every Florida legislator should have received a copy of the timeline of these registry requirements that started off with 3 in 1997 and have grown to 52 by 2020.  Failure to fulfill any of these requirements could lead up to 5 years of imprisonment, even for the thousands of Florida registrants who are now law-abiding citizens
  • The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear Louisiana’s appeal of a decision against its 2006 law requiring that people on the sex offense registry have their driver’s license or identification card marked with “SEX OFFENDER” in orange letters.  The Louisiana Supreme Court said the marking was compelled speech and could not be justified by the state’s interest in protecting public safety.
  • In 2019, a federal judge struck down Alabama’s sex offense registration law that required registrants to carry a driver’s license or official ID with “CRIMINAL SEX OFFENDER” emblazoned in red.
  • While there is no research showing a need for red-lettering there is an abundance of research showing that the sexual recidivism rate for people with a past sex offense is lower than that for all other crimes, with the exception of murder.
  • Research has shown that at least 90% of FUTURE sex crimes will be committed by people NOT on the registry.
  • The first-of-its-kind meta-analysis study of 25 years of findings of the Sex Offender Registration and Notification (SORN) evaluations and their effects on recidivism was published in 2021.  Eighteen research articles including 474,640 formerly incarcerated individuals were used.  (Journal of Experimental Criminology, “The effectiveness of Sex Offender Registration and Notification: A meta-analysis of 25 years of findings”, Kristen M. Zgoba and Meghan M. Mitchell, September 2021)
  • Some of the findings of the above-mentioned study:  (1) The sex offense registries have had no effect on sexual and non-sexual crime commission over their periods of existence, thereby failing to deliver on the intention of increasing public safety; (2) Public safety could likely be maximized by focusing limited resources on the highest-risk individuals, rather than utilizing a one-size-fits-all law; and (3) It is time that we work as an empirically informed community, unhindered by emotion, to find a solution to reining the “horse back into the barn”, i. e., reining in the numerous sex offense registry statutes.

 

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Reposted from:

Florida Action Committee

www.floridaactioncommittee.org

info@floridaactioncommittee.org

833-2-REPEAL     833-273-7325

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Updated: March 14, 2023 — 1:42 pm

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