County Parolee Population Rises a Scary 33% : Crime: Sentencing laws that brought a record number of incarcerations also bring eventual release where convicts came from. The 1,420 who came back to Orange County last year have authorities very worried.

While public outcry has prevented the return of attempted murderer Charles David Rothenberg to Orange County, the number of murderers, sex offenders and othr criminals paroled to Orange County increased a dramatic 33% last year, according to statistics released Tuesday by the state Department of Corrections.

In all, 1,420 inmates were released last year from state prisons to Orange County, where they were put under the immediate supervision of parole officers in Anaheim and Santa Ana, statistics show.

That is up from 1,067 inmates released to the county in 1988, according to numbers compiled by the department at the request of The Times.

The dramatic surge of parolees in Orange County is part of a statewide trend that experts say is the inevitable consequence of stiffer mandatory prison sentences enacted in 1977 as part of the effort to crack down on crime.

Instead of allowing a judge to determine the appropriate punishment, the mandatory sentencing laws require automatic prison terms for those convicted of such crimes as murder, rape, kidnaping, burglary and drug dealing. The champion for this get-tough approach has been Gov. George Deukmejian, who as a legislator wrote the “use a gun, go to jail” statutes as well as the state’s death penalty law.

The result has been a rising tide of criminals sent off to state prisons, which held a record 87,863 inmates as of Jan. 28, corrections officials say.

But the same laws also call for an inmate to be automatically paroled to his home county, a feature that is now triggering a rising tide of parolees back to the streets. Inmates are paroled to the county where they have established legal residence.

While the vast majority of these automatic paroles are given scant public attention, two highly publicized cases created such a furor that state corrections officials had to abort their routine of returning the criminals to their hometowns.

The 1987 release of Lawrence Singleton, convicted of raping a San Diego girl and then hacking off her forearms, caused such a backlash in San Diego county and throughout the state that he had to be paroled to a trailer on state grounds at the San Quentin prison for a year. He was finally released unconditionally on April 25, 1988.

More recently, Orange County residents protested the release of Rothenberg, who was convicted of attempted murder, arson and other crimes for setting his 6-year-old son on fire in a Buena Park motel room on March 3, 1983. The protests were led by Rothenberg’s son, David, who told reporters he never wanted to see his father.

Rothenberg was subsequently released to Northern California, some believe. Corrections officials on Tuesday declined to discuss his whereabouts but say he is under 24-hour electronic and physical surveillance.

Such cases, however, are rare, and Correction Department studies have shown that about half of the former inmates wind up back in jail within two years for either violating the conditions of their parole or committing another crime.

Considering those findings, the 1989 statistics are bad news for Orange County law enforcement, especially since thousands of inmates must be prematurely released on the local level from Orange County’s central jail as well, said Assistant Sheriff Rocky Hewitt.

“Finding that the number of state parolees is also increasing alarms all of law enforcement,” Hewitt said. “It has been our experience in Orange County that parolees do have a high recidivism rate.”

“This, coupled with the ever-increasing number of county inmates that must be released into the community each year due to overcrowding, concerns us a great deal,” he said.

Tuesday’s statistics show that, statewide, the number of parolees has increased dramatically in the last five years. There were 18,861 criminals paroled in California in 1984 contrasted with 37,879 in 1989--a 101% increase. The increase between 1988 and 1989 was 15%.

Meanwhile, the number of inmates paroled to Orange County has increased a more modest 74%, from 814 in 1984 to 1,420 in 1989. Yet the jump in the last year was more than double the statewide average.

Among the group released to Orange County in 1989 were double the number of first- and second-degree murderers--eight in 1989 compared to four in 1988; 20% more robbers; and 64% more drug dealers and users, according to the statistics. There were fewer rapists and inmates convicted of first-degree burglary.

“Orange County and all other county courts are just committing more and more people to prison, and that’s what’s driving the increasing inmate population and their release,” said Robert Bowman, regional parole administrator. Bowman’s office oversees parole offices in Orange, San Diego, Riverside, San Bernardino, Imperial and portions of Los Angeles counties.

Counting the 1989 releases, there are about 18,000 prison parolees living in the six-county area, with each parole officer responsible for an average of 55 inmates, said Bowman.

Orange County parolees are required to report to one of three offices in Anaheim, located in an industrial complex off Burton Lane and the Riverside Freeway, or two offices in Santa Ana, on Main and 17th streets.

Bowman said the high-risk parolees are required to contact their parole officer with a personal visit or by telephone at least four times a month. In many cases, parolees are sent back to prison because routine urine tests show they have been using drugs, which is a violation of their parole guidelines.

STATE PRISON PAROLEES RELEASED TO O.C.

Percentage Offenses 1988 1989 Increase First-degree murder 1 3 200.0% Second-degree murder 3 5 66.7% Manslaughter 10 14 40.0% Manslaughter w/vehicle 9 9 nc Robbery 124 149 20.2% Assault/deadly weapon 31 39 25.8% Assault/battery 2 18 50.0% Rape 15 10 -33.3% Other sex offenses 33 44 33.3% Kidnap 4 6 50.0% Burglary 295 307 4.1% Grand theft 65 86 32.3% Petty theft 29 71 144.8% Receiving stolen property 46 54 17.4% Vehicle theft 59 81 37.3% Forgery/fraud 21 41 95.2% Other property crimes 5 4 -20.0% Drug possession 100 192 92.0% Drug possession for sale 67 103 53.7% Drug sale 52 74 42.3% Drug manufacturing 0 1 -- Drug other 6 15 150.0% Marijuana possession 18 32 77.8% Marijuana sale 16 8 -50.0% Escape 1 4 300.0% Driving under influence 12 15 25.0% Arson 7 3 -57.1% Weapon possession 11 19 72.7% Other 13 12 -7.7% Total 1,067 1,420 33.1%

Source: State Department of Corrections