Since two sex offenders were charged with killing four women while under state and federal watch, California has changed how it supervises such parolees, increasing scrutiny of some and relaxing the monitoring of others. A Times analysis of state data shows that the number of parole agents with caseloads exceeding state limits has increased under the new system, further stretching California’s already strained ability to oversee freed sex offenders. Full Article
Read MoreTag: Parole
$18 Million in Taxpayer Dollars for a Program That Feeds the Sex-Offender Industry and Does Little Else
The Associated Press not only buries the lead in a story about California’s paroled Registered Citizens now being subject to periodic polygraph exams. The AP utterly misses the point. Never mind that polygraphs simply are not reliable. They’re boogie-men used mainly to scare people into admitting to crimes they probably didn’t commit. The real story here, the story The AP can’t see, is about the sex-offender industry. Full Opinion
Read MoreCalifornia making sex offenders take lie-detector tests
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — For the first time, California will make paroled sex offenders take periodic lie detector tests as a way to gauge their behavior patterns and perhaps prevent new sex crimes. The move came in response to several high-profile cases involving parolees who raped and killed. Full Article
Read MoreReview finds parole agents swamped with sex offender caseloads
Nearly two-thirds of parole agents who monitor sex offenders juggle caseloads that exceed department standards, a state corrections review reported Wednesday in response to an Orange County murder case. Agents are supposed to supervise between 20 and 40 parolees, depending on how many are high-risk offenders. But more often than not, the state Office of the Inspector General found, agents are overburdened. Full Article
Read MoreMA: SJC Ends Lifetime Parole for Sex Offenders
The Supreme Judicial Court today ruled that lifetime parole for sex offenders violates the state’s constitution, The Boston Globe reports. In a 6-1 decision where Justice Robert Cordy was the dissenter on some issues, the state’s highest court said judges alone have the power to sentence people. The state law that created “community parole supervision for life” for sex offenders unconstitutionally gives the Parole Board that same power. Full Article
Read MoreProbation officials concede failures in GPS tracking of felons
Los Angeles County probation officials Tuesday conceded widespread failures in their electronic monitoring of felons, in which probation deputies were deluged with meaningless alerts while offenders went untracked for days and weeks at a time. “This is a blueprint of how not to implement a GPS program,” Probation Chief Jerry Powers told the county Board of Supervisors. He said deputies were not at fault, but blamed department administrators and the vendor who sold the county the service.The hearing was triggered by a Feb. 15 story in The Times disclosing that…
Read MoreSex Offender’s Case Won’t Face En Banc Rehearing
PASADENA, Calif. (CN) – The full 9th Circuit should have been called to consider whether to let a sex offender challenge his parole conditions, as the question imperils “our constitutional system’s respect for state sovereignty,” five judges said Tuesday. ____ ____ alleges that California prison officials violated his civil rights by imposing residency and GPS monitoring restrictions typically reserved for sex offenders, even though he had only been convicted in the Golden State for robbery. The state justified the Jessica’s Law parole conditions because of ____’s sexual battery conviction in…
Read MoreLocal man illustrates state sex offender trend
On the same day last month that state Attorney General Kamala D. Harris was announcing an initiative designed to stop criminals from re-offending, prosecutors were in Antelope Valley Superior Court for a pretrial hearing in a case filed against ____ ____ ____, 70, a Valencia resident and three-time convicted sex offender. In the latest case against ____ due to go to court next year, he’s charged with annoying a girl by following her and videotaping her inside a Valencia retail store. Full Article
Read MoreNew law targets sex offenders who disarm tracking devices
SACRAMENTO — Gov. Jerry Brown cracked down on sex offenders who disarm their electronic trackers while on parole, signing legislation Saturday requiring that they stay in jail once they are caught. Some counties with severely crowded jails have freed such offenders almost immediately after detaining them for tampering with the GPS devices, a Times investigation found this year. The bill Brown approved requires that the offenders be sentenced to 180 days and serve their entire parole revocation in jail. Full Article
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