Do You Know Where Your Local Sex Offenders Are?

The state Department of Justice says that as of the end of last month, there were 3,437 registered sex offenders in Orange County.

That means that 3,437 of these people listed Orange County as their residence on prison release records or with their parole officer. Maybe a few others voluntarily put themselves on the list.

(It could be worse. The number for Los Angeles County is 19,885).

But keeping track of the growing number of sex offenders is more complicated than that. You see, in all probability 3,437 is nowhere close to an exact tally of convicted sex offenders in Orange County. Even the officials who compile the statistics say that.

Yes, state law says that people convicted of sex crimes, the vast majority of them men, must register with their local police departments. If they move, they are supposed to register at their new addresses.

But convicts break the law. They don’t register. In droves.

So that’s why when you read about a man being charged with rape, or child molestation, or other crimes of sexual assault, often you’ll see mention of his “failure to register as a sex offender.”

Prosecutors like to tack that on. If they get a conviction, it’s good for at least another 90 days in jail, maybe up to a year.

Beginning next year, a law sponsored by state Sen. Robert Presley will give judges discretion to make failure to register as a sex offender a felony. But that’s only if the guy gets caught not registering three times.

So the truth is that sex offenders probably fear getting caught running a stop sign more than they do violating California Penal Code Section 290. At least higher auto insurance rates sting a little.

I was thinking about this the other day when I read an item on the local news wire about a Maryland man accused of molesting five boys in Yorba Linda. This tidbit wasn’t important enough to make the newspaper or the nightly news.

The district attorney’s office charged William David Levine, 40, with nine felony counts of child molestation and a misdemeanor count of failing to register as a sex offender.

Kathy Harper, the deputy district attorney handling the case, said a Maryland judge sentenced Levine to probation in 1983 after a felony child molestation conviction.

Now, what were the chances that the parents of these Yorba Linda boys knew that this man is a convicted sex offender? I would say they were slim to none.

What are the chances that if Levine is convicted on the latest charges, his future neighbors or co-workers will know? I would guess they are not much better.

And what if Levine had registered as a sex offender, would it have stopped him from making contact with those five boys? Probably not.

That’s just the way things work. Or don’t work. Here’s what I mean:

There’s another sex offender, convicted in January on seven felony counts of child molestation, who lives in Placentia. He is an engineer at Rockwell International with no priors. Probably by most accounts, he is an upstanding citizen. His brush with the law did not make the news.

But the prosecutor in the case, Deputy Dist. Atty. Adriadne Symons, asked the judge to give this man 10 years in state prison. She said then, and as recently as the other day, that this man is a “danger to the community,” someone who refuses even to believe that he did anything wrong.

But the judge instead gave this man five years’ probation and required him to register as a sex offender.

So I called the Placentia Police Department, hoping to find out whether this man was on its list of sex offenders. I did not mention any names, nor did I identify myself as a columnist for The Times. Instead I was a mother concerned about what I had heard.

But the Police Department couldn’t help me. The officers would be violating privacy laws if they did.

This is how the police spokeswoman explained it: “It’s like this. Say you had been arrested and had a history of robbery. If you had to come in and register, would you like people calling up to find out about you?”

My answer to that is no. If I were a robber, I would not want the world to know. I suppose the same goes for sex offenders, or murderers--or even law-abiding citizens. We all treasure our privacy.

Yes, if you or I suspect that something isn’t quite right with someone, we can go to the courthouse and check to see whether that person has been brought before a judge. You’ll need names, and dates, and lots of time, but if you know what you’re doing, you may be rewarded with information that someone else wishes you didn’t have.

But what of the parents whose children may come in contact with this Placentia man? Should they rush to the courthouse to search for his name? Would they know to do that?

Just to be safe, should they do it for everyone, friend or foe or benign stranger, that their child might ever meet?

I don’t pretend to have a good answer for this dilemma. Neither does Deputy Dist. Atty. Symons. She wanted to send this man to jail.

“So what does it mean that someone is a registered sex offender?” she asked me. “If he still goes to his job every day, if he acts normal, who is going to know? If it’s not an extreme case, the press doesn’t cover it.

“I imagine the folks in his community have no idea that this man is a convicted child molester. . . .

“But if I were a parent, I would want to know.”