SEX INCIDENTS DOWN AT LIBRARY LANCASTER BRANCH BRINGS IN FULL-TIME SECURITY TO STOP BAD BEHAVIOR.

Byline: ALEX DOBUZINSKIS Staff writer

LANCASTER -- Library officials have clamped down on inappropriate sexual behavior at the Lancaster branch library, and the number of incidents has decreased since the facility became one of just two libraries in the system to have full-time security, officials said.

Before the library received a security guard and a video monitoring system in May 2005, the library had several incidents of inappropriate sexual behavior, including a report that a man propositioned a juvenile.

``It was unusual. The minute we started to see those incidents, we said this is very strange,'' county librarian Margaret Donnellan Todd said. ``Normally, Lancaster is very quiet, very peaceful.''

County librarians asked the Sheriff's Department and the county Office of Public Safety to look into the matter, and they determined that many of the people causing problems at the library came from centers serving the homeless that had recently opened in the area, Todd said. A mental health agency also opened in the area.

The only other library among the 84 branches the county operates that has full-time security is the Compton branch. A security guard patrols the parking lot there to deter muggers.

The Lancaster branch had a dozen incidents going back to May 31, 2003; whereas most other libraries had at most two incidents over the same time period.

At the Valencia branch, however, there were four incidents, including a man believed to have exposed himself on Aug. 22, 2005, and a sex-related incident eight days later. In the first incident, library patrons who witnessed it disagreed about whether the act was intentional, Todd said.

At the Lancaster branch, library officials supplemented their one security guard with another guard in September 2005, so now there are always two guards for every hour the library is open. Since the library has added security, there has been one report of inappropriate sexual behavior, in April.

``I really think we saw the problem and addressed it,'' said Fred Hungerford, assistant director of the library system.

Providing the extra security at the Lancaster branch costs $150,000 a year.

The county librarian was questioned about security arrangements at various county libraries at Tuesday's Board of Supervisors meeting.

Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich wanted to know if convicted sex offenders could be barred from the libraries, but Todd answered that she has no way of knowing if a library patron is a sex offender.

``It's shocking,'' Antonovich said. ``And you would think that if you're going to have a state law that precludes them from being around young children, and then they have the library that allows them to escape that, then perhaps we ought to look at having legislation to include libraries under those types of specifications that prohibit pedophiles from being in contact with younger people.''

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