State Gives Free Hotel Rooms, Cable TV and Breakfast to Paroled Sex Offenders. Foreclosures and homelessness are problems for many Californians, but the state is helping paroled sex offenders keep a roof over their heads, sometimes with free breakfast and cable TV provided by the taxpayers.
The Contra Costa Times reports: "State corrections officials spent nearly $22 million last year on apartments and motel rooms for hundreds of paroled sex offenders, paying more than $2,000 a month for some parolees and housing others in locations apparently prohibited under Jessica's Law, according to a MediaNews analysis of bank drafts issued by parole agents and addresses from the Megan's Law sex offender database."
Some parolees have received housing assistance for more than two years after being released from prison. The spending violates a state policy directive that housing payments "shall not exceed 60 days" except in limited cases. Also, the assistance is supposed to be a loan that is repaid by the parolees, but state data indicates that repayments are rare.
The newspaper interviewed one paroled sex offender who has received free rent for more than two years at a Budget Inn in Santa Fe Springs, just minutes from Disneyland. "When I first got out, they were having me pay it," he said. "When I found out only a few of us were paying it, I didn't see that was fair, so I stopped paying." At the hotel, parolees get free HBO, complementary continental breakfast every day, and fresh sheets every other day.
The newspaper further reported: "The state has paid rent for sex offenders at an apartment complex in Martinez that stands about 1,000 feet from the gates of John Muir National Historic Site, which sees a steady stream of school field trip groups. The corrections spokesman said they don't consider the historic site, run by the National Park Service, to be a park. Jessica's Law (which bans sex offenders from living within 2,000 feet of a school or a park where kids "regularly gather") … did not define a park, or how to measure the 2,000 feet – about four-tenths of a mile. Parole agents use GPS."
A spokesman for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said the department is planning to dramatically scale back the housing payments, and will focus on providing limited, short-term assistance. Corrections officials say that without the housing subsidies, there will be an increase in sex offenders who become homeless, which will lead to more recidivism and less public awareness of their whereabouts. (Cal-Tax: California needs to get its prison spending under control, so inmates who aren't ready to be released to live independently can be kept behind bars. If the taxpayers are going to pay for prisoners' room and board, it should be cheaper and more secure to keep them in prison, rather than to put them in hotels near potential victims.) (Source: Contra Costa Times, January 17.)
Cal-Taxletter, January 23, 2009
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