One of the Florida Sheriffs Association’s (FSA) primary roles and responsibilities is to support and monitor legislation that ensures public safety in Florida. During the legislative session and throughout the year, FSA’s legislative team works with lawmakers to ensure that bills are introduced and passed that are in the best interests of Florida citizens and that protect the ability of Florida law enforcement to keep communities safe. 

Lawmakers have passed a series of new Florida laws with October 1, 2024 effective dates. Here’s what this means for the citizens of Florida, including a summary of each bill and details of the laws associated with each issue.

Retail Theft

A new Florida law will crack down on organized retail theft and porch piracy by increasing the criminal penalties associated with organized retail theft and lowering the threshold value for stealing packages from a person’s home. The threshold value for third degree felony grand theft from a dwelling has been reduced to $40. If the property stolen is less than $40, a person faces a first-degree misdemeanor for a first violation and a third-degree felony for a subsequent violation.

Public Camping and Public Sleeping

A new Florida law prohibits counties and municipalities from allowing public sleeping or public camping on public property, such as sidewalks. The bill allows cities and counties to set up homeless camps provided they meet basic minimum requirements and are not used continuously for more than one year.

Beginning January 1, 2025, the bill allows a resident, local business owner or the Florida Attorney General to bring a civil action against a county or municipality for allowing unlawful sleeping or camping on public property.

Hope Cards for Persons Issued Orders of Protection

This bill will allow domestic violence victims to carry a small, laminated card in their wallet with all necessary information as opposed to having to carry the hardcopy of the entire order of protection. This new Florida law requires the Office of State Courts Administrator to issue these Hope Cards, which identify and describe the person who is restrained by an order of protection, identify those protected by the order and provide the telephone number for the statewide domestic violence hotline.

Exposure of First Responders to Fentanyl

First responders continue to be exposed to fentanyl while making arrests and conducting traffic stops. This new Florida law will help protect all first responders by creating a new crime (a second-degree felony) for any person who recklessly exposes a first responder to fentanyl. The bill makes it a second-degree felony if an adult recklessly exposes a first responder, including a law enforcement officer, correctional officer, correctional probation officer, firefighter, emergency medical technician or paramedic, to fentanyl and the first responder experiences an overdose or serious bodily injury. The bill also expands protections from prosecution for individuals who seek help in good faith if they believe that they or someone they know is experiencing an overdose.

Digital Voyeurism

Video or digital voyeurism occurs when an individual is unknowingly recorded while they are dressing, undressing or privately exposing their body at a place and time that they have a reasonable expectation of privacy. The new Florida law enhances penalties for digital voyeurism offenses, gives more authority for prosecutors and sets lesser charges for minors who commit the crime. The bill makes the first offense of digital voyeurism a first-degree misdemeanor for a person under 19 and a third-degree felony for a person 19 or older. The bill will give law enforcement additional tools to ensure violators in voyeurism cases are charged individually for each instance and stiffens penalties for those who abuse positions of trust such as parents or guardians.

Sexual Predators and Sexual Offenders

Florida’s new law impose stricter guidelines for sexual offenders and sexual predators. These laws seek to:

• Prevent sex offenders from using a temporary residence
• Require sex offenders to register vehicles and vessels used as living quarters
• Allow a sexual predator or offender to use FDLE’s online reporting system to report any changes to vehicles owned
• Require the sheriff’s office to electronically submit to the FDLE the addresses and locations where a sexual predator or sexual offenders maintain a transient residence within two business days after the sexual predator or sexual offender provides it to the sheriff’s office
• Require that sexual offenders and sexual predators respond to address verification correspondence from county or local law enforcement agencies
• Clarify registration requirements relating to timing of reporting of change of residence to another state
• Require international travel to be reported ahead of time
• Specify that each instance of a sexual predator’s failure to register or report changes to the required registration information constitutes a separate offense
• Require the jail to register a sexual offender within three business days after intake

Child Exploitation Offenses

This new Florida law will help crack down on online child exploitation and grooming of minors. It will protect children from adult groomers by prohibiting an adult from engaging in a pattern of communication with a minor that includes explicit and detailed verbal descriptions of sexual activity, punishable as a third-degree felony.

Tracking Devices

Law enforcement will be allowed to go after criminals who unlawfully track other individuals by expanding the scope of prohibited conduct to capture those individuals by placing AirTags or similar devices in people’s cars, purses, or anywhere else on their property. Additionally, the bill increases the penalty for a violation from a second-degree misdemeanor to a third-degree felony. Parents, caregivers and law enforcement are still able to use tracking devices for lawful purposes.

Nicotine Products

Laws involving nicotine products will take an important step to remove illegal vape products that are addictive and attractive to children from being sold in Florida and will provide harsher punishments for individuals that repeatedly sell these products to underage persons. The bill authorizes the Florida Attorney General to adopt rules to create a directory of nicotine dispensing devices that are “attractive to minors.” Additionally, the criminal penalty is increased for a third or subsequent violation of the prohibition against selling or giving a nicotine product to a person under 21 years of age from a first-degree misdemeanor to a third-degree felony.

Designation of a Diagnosis on Motor Vehicle Registrations

The application form for motor vehicle registration will be required to include language allowing an applicant to voluntarily indicate that he or she has been diagnosed with or is the parent or legal guardian of a child who has been diagnosed with certain mentally or physically limited disorders, such as Alzheimer’s, autism, down syndrome, or PTSD. Under this new Florida law, when the applicant indicates such a diagnosis on the application, the DHSMV must include the designation “SAFE” in the motor vehicle record.

Reclassification of Criminal Penalties

By imposing harsher penalties, these new Florida laws will deter illegal immigrants from returning to the country and committing serious and violent crimes such as carjacking, battery and burglary. The bill increases offenses related to drug trafficking and will help deter organized crime such as drug cartels.

Schemes to Defraud

The bill will help to protect those most vulnerable by increasing penalties for engaging in a scheme to defraud a person 65 or older, a person with a disability or a minor. The bill reclassifies organized fraud and communications fraud offenses that are committed against a person 65 years of age or older, a minor or a person with a mental or physical disability.

Retention of Sexual Offense Evidence

The bill requires a sexual assault kit (SAK) collected from a non-reporting victim to be retained for a minimum of 50 years by the FDLE. This new Florida law requires medical facilities and certified rape crisis centers to transfer the SAK to FDLE within 30 days after collection

Alzheimer’s Disease Training for Law Enforcement Officers

This bill establishes a continued employment training component related to Alzheimer’s disease and related forms of dementia. FDLE will develop the training online and will include instruction on interacting with persons with Alzheimer’s disease. The training may count towards the 40 hours of instruction for continued employment or appointment as a law enforcement officer, correctional officer, or correctional probation officer.

Peer Support for First Responders

The bill amends current law relating to peer support to include correctional officers and correctional probation officers for the purpose of peer support communications. This new Florida law will now recognize the right to confidentiality for peer support communication between a first responder, including a correctional officer, and a first responder peer, ensuring correctional officers receive the same benefit of confidentiality with respect to peer support communications as law enforcement officers, firefighters and other first responders.

Treatment by a Medical Specialist

The bill will give first responders an option to go out of network to receive certain specialty medical care in a timely manner. The bill allows firefighters, law enforcement officers, correctional officers and correctional probation officers to receive medical treatment for a compensable presumptive condition by his or her selected medical specialist.

Campus Emergency Response

Agencies should continue to keep campus emergency response records confidential and exempt. These organizations include public postsecondary educational institutions, state or local law enforcement agencies, county or municipal emergency management agencies, the Executive Office of the Governor, the Department of Education, the Board of Governors of the State University System and the Division of Emergency Management.

Stay Informed about New Laws in Florida

The Florida Sheriffs Association is committed to ensuring that bills are introduced and passed that are in the best interests of Florida citizens and protect the ability of Florida law enforcement to keep communities safe.   For more information about any of these new Florida laws, please visit flgov.com/legislation. Learn more about FSA’s legislative work here.