Homeless offenders in Brevard County struggle to find resources and shelter
Jason Kimbrough is sitting in Brevard County Jail waiting to appear before a judge on a charge of violating parole.
He’d rather be anywhere else, but the reality is he’s not wanted many other places.
A charge against him made in 1998 at 15 years old, of which he was convicted in 2000, has marked him as a sex offender. He is one of 735 registered sex offenders in Brevard County, according to statistics from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.
Since 2017, Kimbrough has called a Melbourne homeless camp home.
The Florida Department of Corrections registered his GPS monitor and ankle bracelet there. It was where he was required to return each night. But in early December, the camp was marked to be bulldozed by the property owner and he was charged with violating parole.
Kimbrough told FLORIDA TODAY on Dec. 8 that the Sheriff’s Office had told them the day prior that if they didn’t leave the camp between 6 a.m. and 8 a.m. Dec. 8, they would face trespassing charges, as the property owner wanted it bulldozed.
Kimbrough said he planned to spend the day looking for a place to stay, then return to the camp for curfew. If he didn’t return, he would be charged with violating his parole. At least seven campers were arrested on charges of violating their probation or parole even though they had remained at the camp.
Whatever the Media Committee has been doing to get Gail quoted in the press and viewed by them as a reliable source, please keep doing that!
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Bless you, Capt.
this is how they get to say that sex offenders re-offend at a high rate they don’t mention that is is not a sex offense that they re-offend but a stupid probation or parole offense because of nonsense like this.
This gives the sex offender opponents fuel to say that we re-offend at 20/30/40% when in reality depending on age it is under 10%
until the registry goes away or a city is sued an loses a large amount of money because they create homeless camps and so on nothing will change. The almighty dollar is what this world listens to and unfortunately the offenders do not have it
More like under 5% according to the DOJ. The only way those numbers get any higher than that is if you count things like being arrested for other offenses or for probation or registration violations as “reoffending.“
What’s the point of parole when the officer violates one for something beyond your control? How come the sheriff’s office didn’t allow them to register their department’s address? Sad when resources are wasted on things that don’t work and could of been used to help these people as well as the community. Damn shame this bs continues in Florida and across the country.
The alleged lawmakers who created the situation should have foreseen this problem and created a solution to it before implementing the law.
I suspect lawmakers foresaw it and were ok with it.
What? Do you think that Lauren Book and those of her ilk Didn’t see outcomes like this? Remember that registrants in Florida are being continually punished because Ron Book chose to outsource his child rearing duties and that went bad. So now someone must pay.
JoeM
Senator Book and her father are forces to be reckoned with and it’s a damn shame they have so much influence in Florida. Wish Florida legislators would tell the duo to kick rocks. Hopefully she’ll never become Florida’s governor. Be one ugly ride in Tallahassee with Lauren at the helm.
Brandon
I would imagine if Book were Governor, we would have to report each week with a plan of action for the week. Sort of like probation where we have to document every single place we have visited, are going to, who we had in our car, their names and ages. Anyone we talked to and what we said to them.
Sometimes things have to get worse to get better. That my friend is why some wins are happening. They keep putting more and more strict restrictions on us to the point where we really are on a watered down probation. Some place even make you pay to register. (And it ain’t cheap)
We here in Florida are inching closer and closer to a melt down with the registry. Something somewhere has to give.
Why should a 15 year old have to be on a registry at all, much less for life?
I wonder what his charges were? They had to be fairly serious I would think.
CherokeeJack
Wait I thought the registry was supposed to protect children, so are 15 year olds adults. I need a beer… cracks open a Mug Root Beer and ponders registry issues with complexity while keeping my sanity.
Brandon
I am so proud of you. Well for keeping your sanity. I lost mine back in 1991 when all this started. I have been to several lost and founds but looks like my sanity cannot be restored unless a judge makes it so.
Good point Cherokee or why doesn’t government even follow basic standards set by the four-fathers of American Justice. Yes I was in jail with an 18 yr that was in their for killing both parents. Yes now thats not something to talk about and thats a wake up call for anyone.
Sure this registry has many downfalls and as Ben has said government should have foreseen but instead government even compounds this, just like bad compounding interest in many levels of this sex registry ordeal. Homelessness is no good I have even stayed at shelters once or twice. I use to even hitch-hike in the 60’s.