Sheriff to Better ID Sex Offenders

The Orange County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday authorized sheriff’s officials to upgrade the department’s website to more specifically identify the homes of high-risk sex offenders.

Since 2002, the Sheriff’s Department website has identified the neighborhoods in which some sex offenders live. But state lawmakers, including Assemblyman Todd Spitzer (R-Orange), want the county to specify the offenders’ addresses. Currently, visitors to the website (www.ocsd.org) can determine whether offenders live within 1,000 feet of their homes, but cannot learn the offenders’ addresses or the streets on which they live.

With the board’s blessing, sheriff’s officials now intend to specify the streets, block numbers and cities in which high-risk sex offenders live and will post the offenders’ names and photographs, Spitzer said. High-risk sex offenders have two or more convictions for certain sex crimes.

Under what is commonly known as Megan’s Law, law enforcement can notify residents when a sex offender has moved into a neighborhood. Taking the more specific approach on the Internet is an important step, Spitzer said.

The Board of Supervisors also authorized its chairman, Tom Wilson, to send letters to cities encouraging them to participate in the sheriff’s sex offender Web page. Fewer than five high-risk sex offenders live in the sheriff’s jurisdiction, but dozens of others live in Orange County cities not participating in the sheriff’s website.

Spitzer, a former Orange County supervisor who addressed the board Tuesday, said he’s “incredibly disappointed” that more cities in the county are not joining the program. He has introduced legislation to require the state to put sex offenders’ addresses on the Internet.

“The privacy of convicted sex offenders is irrelevant when it comes to protecting children in our community,” he said.