Florida Sex Offender Laws Change: New Requirements

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For many good reasons, sex offenders are required to stick to a variety of rules, like being on a public registry and having to live a certain distance away from schools. Thanks to House Bill 1235, those rules just got more stringent. More specifically, it amends Florida’s statutes 775.21 and 943.0435 to stiffen rules that sexual predators and offenders have to follow and to clarify previously vague legislation. 

Effective as of October 1, 2024, certain offenders must provide the registration number for their vessel, live-aboard vessel, or houseboat when applicable. They are also now required to register and report all changes to vehicle information and authorized to do so directly to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) or its online system.

In addition, offenders are required to give a minimum of 48 hours notice to the sheriff’s office in the county of their current residence when they plan to move to a new state or jurisdiction and at least 21 days of notice before traveling out of the country. 

If either instance is not known in advance to the offenders such that they cannot report it according to the proper timelines, then they must report to the sheriff’s office prior to their departure. The FDLE is then responsible for notifying the “intended country of travel of such travel”.

Previously, each sheriff’s office had to provide its own means of conducting check-ins with offenders. House Bill 1235 establishes that the FDLE will create a standard for the transient check-in information for offenders that is obtained by each sheriff’s office. The information must then be submitted to the FDLE within two business days of it being provided by the offender. 

Offenders will now also have three weeks to reply to an address verification request from the FDLE or county or local law enforcement. Each failure to register, report a change, or respond will result in a separate charge for violating this rule and any other rules.

Furthermore, an offender’s type of residence is defined “by the number of days that he or she is present at the location”. The new law specifies that a period of one day means “any part of a calendar day”.

The terms permanent, temporary, and transient residence are also amended to detail that “the first day a person lives, remains, or is located in a place is excluded from the calculation and each subsequent day is counted”.

Under this law, a permanent residence is a location where an offender stays for at least three consecutive days after the move-in day. A temporary residence is a location where an offender stays for at least three days in total over the course of a calendar year. A transient residence is a county where an offender stays for at least three days in total over the course of a calendar year and is not the offender’s permanent or temporary address.

Offenders must also meet new criteria set forth by the amended statutes in order to qualify to have any of the above or alternate registration requirements removed. The FDLE must be notified of any petitions by an offender to earn relief, and the FDLE can present its own evidence at the successive hearing regarding the petition.  

If an offender is eligible for relief from any of the registration requirements, then he or she must show proof “that they do not meet any other qualifying criteria that would require him or her to register as a sexual offender”.

Additionally, the new law mandates that local jails have a set time period in which they must register that they have a sexual offender in their custody. Jail custodians need to document sexual offenders in their custody with digital photographs that are subsequently provided to the FDLE and to notify the FDLE of a sexual offender’s escape or death.

House Bill 1235 was originally prepared by the Criminal Justice Committee, filed on January 4, 2024; and voted through unanimously in the Senate and House with votes of 35-0 and 116-0, respectively. It was presented to Governor DeSantis on April 8, 2024, and he approved it on April 10, 2024.

For complete details on this new law, click here to read all 82 pages of House Bill 1235. For the official summary, click here.

Article by Ema Tibbetts