SMART says the grant money awarded for state sex offender registries is not affected by the number of people on the registry
It has been thought by many of us that the larger the state registry, the more grant money a state will receive. Â
Almost a year ago, FAC reached out to Attorney General Merrick B. Garland with the U.S. Department of Justice to inquire about Florida’s bloated registry since less than half of the people on our registry live in Florida communities.
The response from SMART is attached.
“The amount of funding awarded to each jurisdiction under Byrne JAG is based on a formula that uses the jurisdiction’s overall population and violent crime statistics. The formula does not take into account the number of sex offenders in a jurisdiction’s registry database or on its public registry website”
Here’s how they calculate their thinking for substantial implementation:
Go to SMART SORNA Substantial Implementation (https://smart.ojp.gov/sorna/substantial-implementation)
Then go to Implementation Status (link on the right side)
From there you can read the progress check chart under the progress check link (a PDF in the text) or click FLA on the map to see all FLA related entities and the review of their individual progress.
No where I read did it say PFRs and their numbers.
What I did read in their reply letter is shady justification in using overall pop and their violent crime stats which is a huge umbrella that a lot of people fit under. That is typical gov’t justification that escapes scrutiny based on emotion and would never get cut to avoid appearing soft on those who fit under that umbrella (especially when the feds are borrowing against the future and won’t be around to reconcile it if needed).
Therefore, for those PFRs who are deceased, the families need to petition to get them removed gratis by the state and reimbursed for any fees associated with such action. I once read the state left them on to give others time to read about their passing. Um, usually an obituary is not removed by the family or funeral home once posted and does come up when a name is searched along with any PFR posting so a corroboration can be made the PFR is deceased and no longer needs a PFR registration entry.