Lake County >> Even though the county has the highest number of sex offenders when compared to its neighbors, the recent loosening of housing restrictions will not cause any notable change in Lake County.
“The supreme court’s decision doesn’t affect us,” Lake County Chief Probation Officer Rob Howe said. “With the current supervised population, there is no affect in Lake County, not to say that it couldn’t in the future.”
California voters passed Jessica’s Law in 2006 with the intention of protecting children from predators; however, there is no data to suggest it has affected the crime rate.
But the law created an unintended consequence that made its way through the court system. Passage of Jessica’s Law, with it’s strict limits on proximity to parks, schools and other locations, left roughly a quarter of the state’s 6,000 sex offender parolees without a place to live. This makes it harder to monitor them, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDRC). Furthermore, 90 percent of child victims know their offender, almost half of whom are family members, and the figure only decreases slightly for victims older than 12 years at 80 percent, according to the state department of justice Megan’s Law website.
In an attempt to refocus parole officers’ efforts on high-risk offenders, the state last month eased the blanket housing restriction which required all sex offenders to live more than 2,000 feet from schools and parks where children gather.
The housing prohibition of living at least half a mile from schools will still apply to high-risk offenders and those whose crimes involved children under age 14, the CDRC stated. Lake County has only 12 sex offenders registered as homeless under Megan’s Law — all of whom either committed violent crimes or crimes involving a minor, most younger than 14.
With roughly 64,000 residents, the county currently has 249 registered sex offenders, according to the California Department of Justice Office of the Attorney General. At .39 percent of the population, that’s almost double the rate of Mendocino County with its 185 offenders making up 21 percent of the county’s 87,000 population.
The gap gets even bigger in comparison to Napa County. Lake County has a population of less than half of Napa, in which 155 registered sex offenders live, but has triple the rate of offenders.
Howe said several factors including different charges for crimes between counties may have an affect on Lake County’s larger population of registered sex offenders, but added that none in particular points to a solid cause.
