The Florida Senate

The bill makes multiple changes to the Florida Career Offender Registration Act, to make the registration requirements for career offenders similar to those for sexual offenders and sexual predators.

Registration

Specifically the bill revises the initial registration of an offender by:

• Requiring an offender complete his or her initial registration in person at a sheriff's office within 48 hours of release or establishing a residence;
• Expanding the list of required information to include employment vehicles, professional licenses, and immigration status;
• Requiring an offender whose place of residence is a motor vehicle, trailer, mobile home or manufactured home, vessel, live-aboard vessel, or houseboat to report specified information to the sheriffs office than directly to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE);
• Clarifying an offender released on or after July 1, 2002, is deemed to be released upon conviction, if no sanction is imposed

Career offenders are required to annually submit any changes to his or her required registration information. The bill also includes continuing reporting requirements for an offender who must within 48 hours report: 

• Any change in the offender’s permanent or temporary residence;
• Establishing an instate travel residence;
• Vacating a permanent, temporary, or transient residence without establishing another;
• That he or she remains at a permanent, temporary, or transient residence after reporting his or her intent to vacate such residence;
• Before leaving Florida, report intentions of establishing a permanent, temporary, or transient residence in another state;
• A failure to secure or update a driver license or ID card with the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles (DHSMV) any name change or change in permanent, temporary, or transient residence;
• Any change in vehicles owned;
• All changes to home and cellular telephone numbers, including added or deleted numbers, and all changes to employment information, including the creation of a new business if self employed.

Local law enforcement agencies, working with the FDLE, must verify, at least annually, the addresses of career offenders who are not under the Department of Corrections (DOC) supervision and allows them to verify the addresses of those who are under the DOC supervision. Local law enforcement must report any failure by a career offender to comply with registration requirements to the FDLE.

The DOC who is about to release a career offender from its custody must provide the offender's registration information to the FDLE. An offender who is under the supervision of the DOC, but is not incarcerated, must provide the DOC with the career offender registration information within three days of his or her supervision.

If a career offender is in the custody of a local jail, the jail must notify the FDLE within three business days of the offender’s intake and again upon release.

If the career offender is under federal supervision, the responsible federal agency may forward to the FDLE any registration information and may indicate whether the information is restricted to law enforcement use or may be used by the FDLE for public notification.

Relief from Registration

A career offender may be considered for removal of the registration requirement if at least 20 years have passed since lawful release from confinement, supervision, or sanction, whichever is later, and the offender has had no arrests during that period. Eligible offenders may petition the criminal division of the circuit court where the career offender designation was originally imposed. Notice must be given to the state attorney in the circuit in which the petition is filed, the FDLE. The state attorney and the FDLE may present evidence in opposition to the relief.

License Designation

The bill requires career offenders to have “775.261, F.S.,” printed on the front of their driver license or ID card. If they have not already received an updated card with this marking, they must report in person at a DHSMV driver license office within 48 hours during their birth month to obtain a renewed or updated card containing the required notation.

Community and Public Notification

The FDLE must maintain current online information for each registered career offender and to provide hotline access for law enforcement to obtain immediate locator and criminal characteristics information. The career offender registration list is a public record, and the FDLE may release this information by any appropriate means.

Penalties

The bill provides additional career offender registration violations to include:

• Failure to make a required report in connection with vacating a permanent residence; and
• Failure to respond to address verification correspondence or knowingly providing false registration information.

The bill specifies that a career offender who commits any act or omission in violation of the the registration requirements may be prosecuted in the county:

• Where the act or omission was committed.
• Of the last registered address of the offender.
• In which the conviction occurred for the offense or offenses that meet the criteria for designating a person as an offender.
• In which he or she was designated an offender.
• Where the offender was released from incarceration.
• Of the intended address of the offender as reported by the offender before his or her release from incarceration.

Each instance of failure to register or report changes to the required information specified constitutes a separate third degree felony.

The bill increases the offense for assisting a career offender in noncompliance from a first degree misdemeanor to a third degree felony.

If approved by the Governor, or allowed to become law without the Governor's signature, these provisions take effect on October 1, 2026.

Vote: Senate 36-1; House 105-4