Los Gatos Weekly-Times

LGPD Chief Larry Todd calls Megan's Law victim-oriented

By Shari Kaplan

When Gov. Pete Wilson signed the bill putting Megan's Law on the California law books Sept. 25, he paved the way for law-enforcement agencies to notify community members of registered sex offenders living within their town or city.

During a recent phone interview, Los Gatos Police Chief Larry Todd said: "We finally have a law in place that is more concerned about the victims of these terrible crimes than the perpetrators of them."

According to Todd, who heads the steering committee for the countywide Sexual Assault Felony Enforcement task force, 50 percent of sex offenders repeat their crimes and 67 percent violate their parole within two years.

Because the legislation is so new, Todd said, law-enforcement agencies have not yet reached a standard agreement on how to go about notifying residents of a sex offender's whereabouts. He also said certain parameters may be taken into account, such as the severity of the offense. For example, should residents be notified if an individual's offense was indecent exposure, or only if the individual committed acts such as child molestation or rape?

Either way, it was illegal for law-enforcement agencies to disclose anything at all before the passage of Megan's Law. Soon, Todd said, the state Department of Justice will be sending out CD-ROMs containing the names, photos and information about every registered sex offender in the state. So far, the CD-ROMs will be made available to county sheriff's departments and police departments that serve populations of 200,000 or more.

There are currently 28 known and registered sex offenders in Los Gatos and Monte Sereno, Todd said.

SAFE, which has been in existence for about two years, is a countywide organization whose 20 agents track convicted sexual predators throughout the county to ensure they do not break the conditions of their parole.

"Three hundred eighty one sexual habitual offenders, tracked by the SAFE task force, have been arrested for a combined 7,241 crimes as adults. And, we all know that for every crime an individual is arrested for, there are many more they have probably committed before they were caught," Todd said.