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CORRESPONDENCE_50A
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10/1/2012 12:55:50 PM
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City Clerk
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Agenda Packet
Item #
50A
Date
5/21/2012
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The referenced statements In the Police Chief s report as well as in the proposed ordinance arc also <br />inconsistent with recent data, including data from a 2010 report of the California Department of <br />Corrections and Rehabilitation. According to the data of that agency, the recidivism rate for "registered <br />sex offenders"' is 3.25 percent while on parole and 5 percent overall. (see California Sex Offender <br />Management Board ("CSOMB^) report, August 2011, pages 10 and 21, which can be found online at <br />www.casomb.org). These rates are is significantly lower than the recidivism rates for most other crimes <br />including armed robbery and burglary. (See CSOMB report, August 2011, page 10). <br />Paragraph E of Section 1, in particular, appears to base its incorrect assertion that °sex offenders' have a <br />high recidivism rate on an outdated 2003 report from the Department of Justice, Bureau of statistics. <br />The ordinance's references to that report are fundamentally flawed for two reasons. <br />First, the ordinance cites one statistic from that report out of context, that is, "released sex offenders <br />were four times more likely to be rearrested for a new sex crime". The proper content for the statement <br />is a reference to violent sex offenders and not everyone required by PC 290 to register. Second, the <br />ordinance fails to note two important subsequent findings in the same report: (1) only 5.3 percent of all <br />released sex offenders were rearrested for a sex crime and (2) only 3.3 percent of released child <br />molesters were rearrested for another sex crime against a child. <br />It is significant to note that the City does not propose to prohibit those convicted of crimes for which <br />there is a much higher recidivism rate, such as armed robbery and burglary, from the same activities <br />listed in the draft ordinance. The disproportionate appliation of the proposed prohibitions to only <br />"registered sex offenders" could be construed as a violation of the civil rights of registered sex <br />offenders° and thereby expose the Clty of Santa Ana to future legal challenges. <br />The proposed ordinance is also flawed because it is inconsistent with existing state law which prohibits <br />some, but not all, "registered sex offenders" from entering parks where children gather without express <br />permission. The scope of that state law, Penal Code §3053.8, is limited to "registered sex offenders" <br />who are on parole after serving in prison for certain offenses in which one or more of the victims was <br />under 14 years old. The City's passage of the proposed ordinance could be Interpreted as an illegal and <br />unenforceable preemption of that state law. <br />The orooosed ordinance is based upon faulty logic <br />Most sexual assaults do not occur in parks or other public places <br />The purpose of the proposed ordinance, as stated in section 10-700, is to "reduce the potential risk of <br />harm to children of our community"' by limiting the ability of °sex offenders to be in contact with <br />unsuspecting children in locations that are primarily designed for use by..., chidren". Tlxse locations <br />include public parks, schools, child care centers and public libraries. <br />The proposed ordinance is based upon faulty logic because most sexual assaults of children do not occur <br />in parks or other public places. A recent study, in fact, concluded that sex offenders do not meet or <br />perpetrate offenses in public or semi-public locations with great frequency. Instead, only 6.8 percent of
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