Miracle Village

Miracle Village (officially City of Refuge since 2014)^[1] is a community on Muck City Road, about three miles (4.8 km) east of Pahokee, Florida, that serves as a haven for registered sex offenders. It is located within one of the most isolated and poorest parts of Palm Beach County.^[2][3] The site was chosen because of its isolation; given that, the sex offender residence restrictions do not apply.

City of Refuge
Nickname:  Miracle Village
Country	United States
State	Florida
County	Palm Beach
Founded	1964
Government
• Type	Operated by Matthew 25: Ministries
• Executive Director	Ted Rodarm
Population
• Estimate  (2018)	200
Time zone	UTC-5 (Eastern (EST))
• Summer (DST)	UTC-4 (EDT)

Description

The complex of 54 duplexes and six family homes^[4] is operated by Matthew 25: Ministries, an organization with the stated goal of providing prison aftercare. The Executive Director in 2017 was Ted Rodarm, himself an ex-offender.^[5] In October 2010, the community included 66 registered sex offenders;^[6] by July 2013, there were 100;^[7] and by 2017, it held 120.^[5] The total population as of 2018, including family members, was 200.^[8] It is the largest community of registered sex offenders in the United States.^[6] There are an additional 300 who have resided there but since moved on.^[9]

An affiliated organization, Miracle Village Ministries, provides services including transportation to newly released prisoners. It describes itself on its website as "a faith-based prison aftercare ministry".^[10]

Previously, the complex was known as Pelican Lake. It was built by U.S. Sugar in 1964 as housing for migrants working the sugar cane fields,^[11][8][7] now replaced by machinery. After working out a deal with Matthew 25 Ministries to lease the property, the owner, Alston Management Inc., informed residents with school-age children that they would have to leave or be evicted.

Federal law prohibits discrimination against families with children, except in certain cases such as communities for the elderly.^[12] Witherow was sued by the Legal Aid Society of Palm Beach County and the Florida Equal Justice Center on behalf of some residents.^[13] In 2011, a federal judge found that Matthew 25 Ministries and Alston Management had violated the Federal Fair Housing Act.^[14]

Relations with Pahokee

Miracle Village's relations with nearby Pahokee were initially difficult, but have improved considerably. The day Pat Powers, a resident and the village manager, first approached the City Council in nearby Pahokee, "We were the plague. They wanted to hang us. They wanted to knock the crap out of us and they had to give us a police escort to leave."^[15]

The mayor in 2009, Wayne Whitaker, stated that he was unaware that offenders were being recruited to live there and that he believed having so many live together would be "very, very risky".^[16]

Media attention

Radio

National Public Radio's All Things Considered covered the town in 2009.^[17]

Photography

Noah Rabinowitz

On assignment for the German magazine Süddeutsche Zeitung (South German Times), American photographer Noah Rabinowitz took a series of photos of Miracle Village. They were published in 2013, with a 4,000 word article in the magazine.^[9][8]

Sofía Valiente

In 2014, photographer Sofía Valiente, who lives in nearby Belle Glade, published a book with the simple title of Miracle Village.^[18] The unpaged book contains pictures of Miracle Village and its sex offender residents. Along with an introduction by resident Joseph Steinberg, describing what it is like to be picked up at the prison gate and driven to Miracle Village, the book reproduces 11 handwritten statements by registrants describing their offenses, plus a Dear John letter from an offender's wife saying she wants a divorce.^{[19][20][21][22]} Of her work, Valiente said: "It is not just a documentary record of a shunned community, but an argument for understanding, rehabilitation, even forgiveness."^[23]

Charles Ommanney

Photographer Charles Ommanney lived at Miracle Village for a week with the residents and in 2017 published 10 photographs, with brief commentary, in Politico magazine.^[2]

Movies and Television

Banished

Banished is a 15-minute video by reporter Aaron Thomas^[24] and produced by Journeyman.tv in 2013, which aired in 2014 on SBS Australia. It concludes with a focus on Pahokee's pastor Patti Auperlee, who has helped the sex offenders be accepted by the wider community.^[25]

Sex Offender Village

A New York Times "Op-Doc" (see Op-Ed) video from May 21, 2013, focuses on the problems of the residents, many of whom are interviewed.^[26]

Second Chance Sex Offenders

On January 24, 2018, the BBC released its 58-minute documentary Stacey Dooley Investigates: Second Chance Sex Offenders, whose topic is Florida's sex offender policies, the toughest in the nation. Reporter Stacey Dooley interviews some officials who are hostile to sex offenders and believe they can never be rehabilitated, such as Florida Senator Lauren Book and Bradford County Sheriff Gordon Smith. She concludes with Miracle Village.^{[27][28][29][30][31]}

Criminal Minds

Season 11, Episode 6 “Pariahville” of the television series Criminal Minds takes place in a fictionalized version of Miracle Village called “Glenport Village”.

Play

America is Hard To See (Off-Broadway play)

Main article: America Is Hard to See

A research team from the Life Jacket Theater Company visited Pahokee for a week in October 2015. Based on interviews, autobiographical statements, and court records the team collected, the Company presented America Is Hard to See in January and February 2018.^[32][33] The play is a fusion of personal interviews and texts written by the residents, with traditional Methodist hymns, lines from the sermons of Patti Auperlee, and original songs composed by Priscilla Holbrook. The central theme is whether there are limits to grace, whether or not sex offenders — all of them — can ever be forgiven.^{[34][35][36][37]}

Except for the hymns, each line of the eighteen songs is taken from the transcript of a statement by a Miracle Village resident, or from a sermon by Pastor Aupperlee.^[32]

See also

• Florida Civil Commitment Center
• Pervert Park
• Julia Tuttle Causeway sex offender colony

Further reading

• Wolford, Ben (August 1, 2013). "Sex offenders, Pahokee congregation forge unlikely bond". Tampa Bay Times.
• O'Hagan, Sean (January 19, 2015). "Miracle Village: the sleepy Florida town for sex offenders [review article of the book by Sofia Valiente]". The Guardian.
• Thompson, Marcus (January 28, 2015). "Inside Miracle Village, Florida's Isolated Community of Sex Offenders". Vice. Retrieved January 20, 2018.
• Kirk, Jay (April 27, 2015). "Welcome to Pariahville". Gentleman's Quarterly.
• Aupperlee, Patti (November 2, 2017). "Church of the Second Chance". Ministry Matters. Retrieved August 15, 2018.

References

1. Hu, Caitlin (March 3, 2015). "110 convicted sex offenders live in harmony in this small Florida town". Quartz. from the original on November 15, 2017. Retrieved December 9, 2017.
2. Fossett, Katelyn (December 7, 2017). "Inside the Remote, Little-Known Sanctuary for Sex Offenders". Politico. from the original on December 10, 2017. Retrieved January 20, 2018. Photographer Charles Ommanney lived at Miracle Village for a week with the residents and tried to capture what it was like to live on the other side of America's sex offender laws.
3. Reimann, Marina (July 8, 2015). "6 Of The Weirdest Tiny Towns In The United States". cracked.com. from the original on January 17, 2018. Retrieved January 25, 2018. Among the new residents were men convicted of looking at child pornography, young guys who had underage girlfriends, guys who exposed themselves in public, a guy who got caught urinating in public, and actual child molesters. Oh, and one woman sex offender. Just one.
4. McGovern, Suzanne (March 21, 2018). "Miracle Village story takes center stage off-Broadway". Florida Conference of the United Methodist Church. from the original on July 27, 2018. Retrieved July 25, 2018.
5. . Matthew 25 Ministries Newsletter. September 2017. Archived from the original on January 26, 2018. Retrieved January 20, 2018.
6. Gutman, Matt; Litoff, Akyssa (October 8, 2010). "Sex Offenders Find Safe Haven in 'Miracle Village'". Nightline (ABC News). from the original on August 17, 2018. Retrieved January 20, 2018.
7. Linda Pressly (31 July 2013). "The village where half the population are sex offenders". BBC News. from the original on 31 July 2013. Retrieved 31 July 2013.
8. Rabinowitz, Noah. "Miracle Village". from the original on January 26, 2018. Retrieved January 20, 2018.
9. Fellman, Max (2013). "Leben auf Abstand (Living at a Distance)". Süddeutsche Zeitung. Vol. 50.
10. "Welcome to Miracle Village Ministries". from the original on January 26, 2018. Retrieved January 20, 2018.
11. Wolford, Ben (August 1, 2013). "Sex offenders, Pahokee congregation forge unlikely bond". Tampa Bay Times.
12. Mitra Malek (January 29, 2009). Housing for ex-inmates raises rancor in Pahokee^{[dead link]}, The Palm Beach Post. Retrieved on February 22, 2011.
13. Florida Ex-Offenders Find Safe Harbor 2011-07-26 at the Wayback Machine, Justice Fellowship. Retrieved on February 22, 2011.
14. Musgrave, Jane (November 5, 2011). "Religious group that evicted families to house sex offenders violated federal law, judge rules". Palm Beach Post. from the original on January 29, 2018. Retrieved January 24, 2018.
15. Usborne, David (August 16, 2013). "Miracle Village: Sex offenders are welcome". The Independent.
16. Carlos Miller (September 27, 2009). Community Caters to Sex Offenders, NBC Miami. Retrieved on February 22, 2011.
17. Allen, Greg (December 4, 2009). "Pastor Offers Sex Offenders A 'Miracle': A New Start". All Things Considered, National Public Radio. Retrieved January 25, 2018.
18. Sofia Valiente (2014). Miracle Village. Catena de Villorba (Italy): Fabrica. ISBN 9788898764273.
19. Thompson, Marcus (January 28, 2015). "Inside Miracle Village, Florida's Isolated Community of Sex Offenders". Vice. from the original on January 25, 2018. Retrieved January 20, 2018. Sofia Valiente's photographs explore how the most ostracized people in Western society live.
20. Marshall, Barbara (August 17, 2017). "Taking pictures of sex offenders convinced artist to make Glades home". Palm Beach Post. from the original on January 26, 2018. Retrieved January 20, 2018. This was a way to look beyond the stigma, to find the person there.
21. Iaboni, Lisa (January 26, 2015). "Welcome to Miracle Village". The Marshall Project. from the original on September 17, 2017. Retrieved January 20, 2018. I saw another human being and not the monster he was made out to be.
22. Sanburn, Josh (September 16, 2014). "Life Inside a Community of Sex Offenders". Time. from the original on January 25, 2018. Retrieved January 20, 2018. Review of Valiente's book
23. O'Hagen, Sean (January 19, 2015). "Miracle Village: the sleepy Florida town for sex offenders". The Guardian. from the original on February 6, 2018. Retrieved February 4, 2018.
24. "Miracle Village: A Secret & Secluded Town for Sex Offenders in Florida". First to Know. January 8, 2015. from the original on January 24, 2018. Retrieved January 20, 2018.
25. "Film: Banished". Journeyman.tv. 2013. from the original on January 24, 2018. Retrieved January 20, 2018.
26. Jackson, Lisa F.; Feige, David (May 21, 2013). "Sex Offender Village". New York Times. from the original on July 28, 2018. Retrieved July 28, 2018.
27. MH (2018). "Stacey Dooley Investigates: Second Chance Sex Offenders". BBC News. from the original on February 7, 2018. Retrieved January 23, 2018.
28. "Stacey Dooley Investigates: Second Chance Sex Offenders". BBC. January 24, 2018. from the original on January 28, 2018. Retrieved January 23, 2018.
29. Myall, Steve (January 16, 2018). "Inside the secret community dubbed Miracle Village where 100 child sex offenders live in isolation cut off from normal society". Daily Mirror. from the original on January 28, 2018. Retrieved January 25, 2018.
30. Brown, Vanessa (January 22, 2018). "The secret sex offender village". Central Telegraph (Australia). from the original on January 23, 2018. Retrieved January 22, 2018.
31. Deen, Sarah (January 23, 2018). "Meet the mum who defends daughter dating a sex offender and claims no relationship is perfect". MetroUK. from the original on January 23, 2018. Retrieved January 23, 2018.
32. Host: Robin Shannon (January 25, 2018). "Miracle Village — America Is Hard To See". Fordham Conversations. 30 minutes in. WFUV. from the original on February 8, 2018. Retrieved February 4, 2018.
33. Collins-Hughes, Laura (February 2, 2018). "Review: An 'Our Town' With Sex Offenders, in 'America Is Hard to See'". New York Times. from the original on July 19, 2018. Retrieved February 4, 2018.
34. Life Jacket Theatre Company (2018). "America Is Hard to See. A New American Play" (PDF). (PDF) from the original on January 25, 2018. Retrieved January 20, 2018. Through field interviews and archival research, the company shares real stories about diverse human experiences, particularly those of people living on the margins — the outsiders and outcasts.
35. Stewart, Zachary (February 2, 2018). "A Colony of Sex Offenders Takes the Stage in America Is Hard to See. Life Jacket Theater's latest documentary play addresses an uncomfortable subject". Theatermania. from the original on February 7, 2018. Retrieved February 6, 2018.
36. Schindler, Anne (December 4, 2015). "Florida sex offender story moves to New York stage". Des Moines Register and Iowa City Press-Citizen. from the original on February 7, 2018. Retrieved February 5, 2018.
37. Schindler, Anne (November 3, 2016). "'Hard to See' A story of sex offenders takes center stage". WTLV (First Coast News). from the original on July 17, 2021. Retrieved February 5, 2018.

External links

• Matthew 25 Ministries web site

26°48′45″N 80°36′41″W / 26.8124°N 80.6114°W / 26.8124; -80.6114