Miami Forces Sex Offenders Into Tent City

By Jess Kilby,  Newser Staff
Posted Jun 22, 2009 6:20 AM CDT
Miami Forces Sex Offenders Into Tent City
An elderly sex offender relaxes outside his tent at the makeshift camp he and other offenders call home under the Julia Tuttle Causeway in Miami, Feb. 5, 2008.   (AP Photo/David Adame)

Miami’s sex offenders have been corralled into a squalid tent city under a highway overpass thanks to a law that critics call inhumane, the BBC reports. Sex offenders are barred from living within 2,500 feet of any place in the city where children congregate, including libraries and parks—which leaves few options for the roughly 70 convicted sex offenders dumped at the site by city officials.

"This is the stupidest damn law I have ever seen and it's purely mandated by revenge without any consideration for the well-being of these people," says a local college dean who advocates on the offenders’ behalf. The site lacks running water, electricity, and any toilet facilities, which has prompted one city official to push the state for change—out of fear the conditions "will eventually push them back into the population."
(More Miami stories.)

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