What is the history of SAFE?
The District Attorney's office and the Sheriff's Department working with other local and state law enforcement agencies developed the SAFE (Sexual Assault Felony Enforcement) Team to provide a comprehensive approach in identifying, monitoring and enforcing registration requirements for sexual offenders who reside in the county. Sexual predators are required by law to register their residence address with local law enforcement. Theoretically, this requirement allows law enforcement to monitor highly dangerous felons at all times. Failure to comply with this law can result in a felony violation.
The SAFE Task Force utilizes multi-disciplined law enforcement agencies that are geographically located in six regions throughout the county to enforce violations by sexual offenders. The team is staffed with law enforcement personnel from the Riverside County District Attorney's Office, Riverside County Sheriff's Department, Riverside County Probation Department, California State Parole, California Department of Justice, Banning Police Department and Corona Police Department.
Before the formation of the SAFE team, law enforcement agencies in Riverside County possessed minimal resources and no comprehensive plan dedicated to the identification, monitoring and enforcement of the county's 3,519 sexual offenders. Due to this fact, many sexual offenders reoffended or violated their registration requirements and their whereabouts were unknown to law enforcement thereby endangering the women and children of Riverside County.
Since November 2006, over 100 sexual predators have been criminally charged by the District Attorney's office based on the SAFE Team's investigations. Most offenders prosecuted were sent to prison as a result. Overall, the SAFE Team has provided an increased level of safety to the citizens, children and community by decreasing the number of non-compliant sexual offenders from 17.7% to 8.3%. The decrease equates to 361 non-compliant sexual offenders now in compliance with the registration requirement.
Source: DA Press Release June 23, 2008