Delinquent Parolees Arrested in Sweeps

About 23 Ventura County parolees are awaiting hearings and possible return to prison after being picked up this week during a series of sweeps coordinated by the California Department of Corrections.

The 23 men were all on parole from state prison and had stopped visiting their parole agents, said Dennis Charles, the unit supervisor for the department’s Ventura County parole office.

The 17 state parole agents have responsibility for keeping track of the 1,400 parolees in the county, Charles said.

Of those 1,400 parolees, more than 260 have failed to report to their parole officers, he said.

“These are people who are on parole from state prisons like Folsom or San Quentin, the hard-core type criminals,” Charles said.

Most of those netted in the sweeps had served time on drug convictions, he said.

The sweeps in Ventura, Oxnard, Santa Paula, Thousand Oaks, Moorpark and several unincorporated communities involved about 50 law enforcement officers, including deputies from the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department’s crime suppression unit and officers from the Ventura, Oxnard and Santa Paula police departments.

The 23 parolees will now go before a state parole board that will decide whether the “parole absconders” should return to prison, Charles said.

This is the second time this year a parole sweep has been conducted in the county. Charles predicted that another sweep would take place early next year.