No Room In Jails, Sex Offenders Disable Tracking, Walk Away

Call it a great example of ripple effects from rationing justice: The state cuts expenses by shuffling sex offenders from state prisons to county jails, then county jails cut expenses by parole and rely on GPS tracking devices (ankle bracelets), and then the sex offenders simply disable the devices and walk away. The L.A. Times’ Paige St. John is reporting this week that state corrections officials are “expressing concern” and the “problem may be larger than they believed.”

Reports St. John: “Officials in the Department of Corrections had stated for months that such cases numbered in the hundreds. Then, earlier this month, they said they knew of 3,200 cases from October 2011 through December 2012. On Monday, department spokeswoman Deborah Hoffman said that because that tally included only cases in which parole revocation hearings were held, the actual number of incidents may be larger.” It seems more than 400 convicted sex offenders may have escaped the system and remain at large.

If state officials are admitting this much already, this is a scandal to monitor. Read the story here.