COPS TRACK SEX OFFENDERS STATE GRANT HELPS THREE COUNTIES MONITOR MOVEMENTS OF EX-CONS.Byline: ERIC LEACH Staff Writer A state grant is helping the Ventura County Sheriff's Department The Ventura County Sheriff's Department (VCSD) provides law enforcement for the unincorporated areas of Ventura County, California, USA, as well as several cities within the county. The cities that VCSD serves are Camarillo, Fillmore, Moorpark, Ojai, and Thousand Oaks. keep better track of registered sex offenders with a new task force involving Santa Barbara Santa Barbara (săn'tə bär`brə, –bərə), city (1990 pop. 85,571), seat of Santa Barbara co., S Calif., on the Pacific Ocean; inc. 1850. and San Luis Obispo San Luis Obispo (săn l  `ĭs ōbĭs`pō), city (1990 pop. 41,958), seat of San Luis Obispo co., S Calif., near San Luis Obispo Bay; inc. 1856. counties.
The $687,750 grant will help the sheriff's departments in the tri-county area work with local police departments and immigration immigration, entrance of a person (an alien) into a new country for the purpose of establishing permanent residence. Motives for immigration, like those for migration generally, are often economic, although religious or political factors may be very important. and probation agencies. "It helps us better track the sex registrants and keep the database updated. It makes the whole system run more efficiently," said Sgt. Tim Waite, a supervisor of the Sexual Assault Unit for the Ventura County Sheriff's Department. The new task force is called the Sexual Assault Felony Enforcement (SAFE) team. "We have had a problem, particularly with the transients. If they don't come and register every 30 days, we don't know Don't know (DK, DKed) "Don't know the trade." A Street expression used whenever one party lacks knowledge of a trade or receives conflicting instructions from the other party. where they have gone," Waite said, explaining that transients have to register every 30 days under state law, while people who have stable residences register once a year. In 1947, California was the first state in the nation to enact a sex-offender registration law, and the state's Megan's Law Megan's Laws are named for Megan Kanka, a seven-year-old girl from New Jersey who was sexually assaulted and murdered in 1994 by a neighbor who, unknown to the victim's family, had been previously convicted for Sex Offenses against children. was enacted in 1996, allowing law local enforcement agencies to notify the public about sex-offender registrants who could pose a risk to the public. The law is named for a 7-year-old New Jersey girl who was raped and murdered by a known child molester Noun 1. child molester - a man who has sex (usually sodomy) with a boy as the passive partner paederast, pederast degenerate, deviant, deviate, pervert - a person whose behavior deviates from what is acceptable especially in sexual behavior who had moved across the street from her family. Sgt. Randy Foushee of the Simi Valley Police Department The Simi Valley Police Department (SVPD) is the police department of the city of Simi Valley, California. The department currently has over 120 sworn officers, and more than 65 support personnel[1]. The department has a patrol area that covers over 39 square miles. said the grant will help all the local law enforcement agencies A law enforcement agency (LEA) is a term used to describe any agency which enforces the law. This may be a local or state police, federal agencies such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) or the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). in an important task. "The law enforcement community recognizes that we need to communicate on a regular basis because some of these sex offenders are moving around from community to community," he said. "We have to communicate and we are doing that." In November, California voters approved Proposition 83, known as Jessica's Law, to improve monitoring of sex offenders and increase penalties and restrictions on where sex offenders can live. The law is named after a 9-year-old Florida girl raped and murdered in 2005. Among other things, the new law bars registered sex offenders from living within 2,000 feet of any school or park. Once police find that someone is not at a site where they have registered, "We immediately start looking, make contact and make sure they are complying with the rules," Waite said. Of the new task force, he said, "It makes the whole system run more efficiently." Officials said the $687,750 grant from the Governor's Office of Emergency Services emergency services Emergency care '…services …necessary to prevent death or serious impairment of health and, because of the danger to life or health, require the use of the most accessible hospital available and equipped to furnish those services' will be divided among the three counties to improve training and public awareness of the laws governing people registered as sex offenders and how the public can use the Megan's Law Web site to monitor their neighborhoods. In California, www.meganslaw.ca.gov keeps track of more than 60,000 registered sex offenders. The grant money also will provide for a deputy to work full time tracking registered sex offenders and act as a deterrent by letting the sex-offender registrants know they are being monitored, Waite said. "It allows us to update our systems," he said, "get ahold of these guys, see what they look like now, and keep track of them." eric.leach@dailynews.com (805) 583-7602 |
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