Florida is a haven for strangeness, especially in terms of criminal behavior. Florida thieves once stole the remains of a relative because they believed the powdery substance found in a tackle box was cocaine. In 1994, at a hotel near Miami Airport, the dead body of a 24-year-old woman was found underneath a bed, after the room’s guests complained of a foul smell. Later that year in Fort Lauderdale, a hotel staff member discovered another dead body, this time of
47-year-old man under a bed. Weird.
A Florida woman making meth accidentally dialed 911 instead of area code 921, hung up, and inadvertently led police directly to her well-stocked drug lab.
Then there is the whole voting in a democracy thing Floridians can’t seem to get a handle on. Maybe it is the heat, or as I’m told, the humidity, that makes people crazy. Maybe it’s the close proximity to other countries in case one needs to flee. Either way, wide-ranging media figures, from Adam Corolla of Loveline to the CBS News: 60 Minutes anchors, have taken note: If something is so criminally strange or politically far-fetched it seems unbelievable, it probably happened in Florida.
Now this land of gator farms, Epcot Center and hanging chads has gone and done something — right? Earlier this week Florida Gov. Jeb Bush signed the Jessica Lunsford Act into law. Jessica was 9 years old when she was abducted, sexually assaulted, then murdered by a convicted sex offender in March. John Evander Couey confessed to the crime and showed police where he buried her alive.
The Jessica Lunsford bill was swiftly drafted and moved to law unanimously after much emotional campaigning by the girl’s father, Mark Lunsford, and many Florida politicians. A registered sexual predator confessed and was charged with the death of another Florida girl, 13-year-old Sarah Lunde, only weeks after Jessica’s murder. The events enraged the citizens and politicians of Florida and sped the legislative process for what is now known as Jessica’s Law.
The new law is the toughest in the nation, imposing a mandatory sentence of 25 years to life in prison for people convicted of sex crimes against children under 12 and requiring convicted sex offenders to wear global tracking devices on their ankles for the rest of their lives.
The tracking device, which uses the satellite Global Positioning System, will alert authorities if a convicted sex offender is violating parole by being near a school or any other prohibited area. It took Florida authorities nearly a month to find Couey; if he had been wearing the tracking device, he would have been found instantly.
Local police can monitor the global tracking devices any time of day; makers of the device hope it will aid in the creation of a national database for sex offenders.
Offenders who molest older children, 12 and older, will be required to wear the tracking device only during probation. It will be removed upon completion of their disciplinary program. This means Jessica’s law only affects pedophiles (adults who are sexually attracted to children), not, for example, a 19-year-old convicted of statutory rape for having sex with a 16-year-old.
Jessica’s law also strengthens and adds to offender registration requirements and makes it a felony to harbor a sexual offender. It is rumored that the people living with Couey in the trailer, where he says he held Jessica captive for days before killing her, were aware they were living with a sex offender who was unregistered in the area.
Critics argue the law is too expansive and doesn’t allow for possible rehabilitation of sex offenders. Others say the global tracking device violates the offender’s right to privacy — that tracking sex offenders like animals violates their humanity.
I say when you rape a young child, you have given up all rights to be treated as anything more than the animal you are. And rehabilitation? It doesn’t work, not for the sex offenders this law targets. People who engage in sexual contact with 11-year-old children and younger have something fundamentally wrong with their brains. They have an incurable illness that can only be contained with constant work and attention through therapy, criminal analysis and an absence of vulnerable children in their presence. This is a near-impossible task to accomplish for the offenders as well as the judicial system.
With Jessica’s Law, Florida hopes to stop child molestation before it starts. Lawmakers there claim the stiff penalties, which will go into effect Sept. 1, will deter potential molesters from acting in the first place. Politicians are confident it will lower the numbers of repeat offenders. Jessica’s Law will eliminate the issue of offenders “disappearing” when they change residence.
This is the first and likely only time I am going to say it, but it looks as though all states could take a lesson from Florida law. Gator country is
really on to something with this one.

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