California’s sex offender registry is intended to inform the public, but Eyewitness News wanted to investigate what happens when a listed address raises questions. <\/p>\n
California\u2019s Megan\u2019s Law website is designed to give the public information about registered sex offenders, but the state warns the information may contain errors and omissions \u2014 and a review of listings in Bakersfield raised questions about how some addresses are verified.<\/p>\n
The Megan\u2019s Law website, a public registry, lists just over 1,000 registrants in Bakersfield, according to our review. A search within five miles of the station found addresses that appeared to correspond to intersections or locations without an apparent residence. Eyewitness News decided to visit those sites. <\/p>\n
One location was the intersection of Hageman Road and Santa Fe Way. Another was near Williams Street and California Avenue, where an online search did not identify a corresponding address.<\/p>\n
The review also included a commercial truck lot. The owner and several others there said they were not aware of anyone living or staying overnight at the property.<\/p>\n
Those findings do not establish whether any registrant violated the law, but they raised questions about how addresses listed on the registry are checked.<\/p>\n
In an exclusive interview, Eyewitness News spoke with journalist Chris Hansen, known for NBC\u2019s \u201cTo Catch a Predator,” about the challenges of monitoring registrants. <\/p>\n
“I am not surprised that convicted sex offenders try to evade monitoring and detection,” Hansen said\/ <\/p>\n
Hansen said said monitoring compliance can be difficult when agencies lack resources to verify registrations.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s a big job and it’s a difficult job. And when somebody registers and there aren’t enough investigative bodies to go check compliance and make sure these people are where they’re supposed to be, you get issues like the ones you’ve uncovered, which is guys lying about their residences,\u201d Hansen said.<\/p>\n
Eyewitness News wanted to learn what Bakersfield Police does to keep tabs on sex offenders’ addresses. <\/p>\n
Bakersfield police Detective Michael Broida, who works in the department\u2019s Special Victims Unit, said clerks handle registrations and distribute lists of people who have failed to comply.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf they are coming up as an intersection or a taco truck, then from what it sounds like, they are not in compliance,\u201d Broida said.<\/p>\n
Broida said officers have other responsibilities and cannot check every case themselves.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have our lists and those lists get disseminated, but as far as each officer’s time to be able to go and locate every single sex offender that’s out of compliance, I wish we had a dedicated unit for it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Broida said reports of possible violations can be investigated.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust like any other crime, we don’t know every single burglary that occurs, but if somebody calls and reports it, it will be investigated,” Broida said. “If there is a crime and probable cause to make an arrest, then that will absolutely happen.” <\/p>\n
Hansen said agencies should look at ways to strengthen oversight.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, all of those entities need to come together and based upon what you’ve exposed in your reporting, come up with a solution here,\u201d Hansen said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"California’s sex offender registry is intended to inform the public, but Eyewitness News wanted to investigate what happens…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":507207,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[151,153,152],"class_list":["post-507206","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bakersfield","tag-bakersfield","tag-bakersfield-headlines","tag-bakersfield-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/507206","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=507206"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/507206\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/507207"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=507206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=507206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=507206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}