1 of every 3 sexually violent predators released under state program have ended up in San Diego County

From the sun-baked center of the tiny desert town of Jacumba, it’s fewer than 2,000 feet to the Mexican border — or about as far south as you can go in California and still be in the United States.

It’s here, in this corner of San Diego County with a population of about 900, where the state of California has placed more sex offenders through a costly conditional release program than any other community in the state.

Jacumba has been the unwilling host to 12 sex offenders since 2007, all of whom have been officially designated with a term that might be the most alarming in the state law — sexually violent predator. 

The number of SVPs in Jacumba is just part of a remarkable overall picture in the county. 

Of the 60 men who have been released under the Forensic Conditional Release Program, or CONREP, statewide over the past two decades, 21 have been housed in San Diego, according to the Department of State Hospitals, which runs the CONREP program.

That is one of every three CONREP releases in the state ending up somewhere in San Diego. Nearly all have been assigned to live in communities across the rural backcountry, from Borrego Springs to Campo and, mostly, Jacumba.

And more are on the way. 

A state audit released in the spring showed four more SVPs were awaiting “placement” somewhere in San Diego — more than any other county in the state, including giant Los Angeles County.

The 21 CONREP releases in San Diego County are probably the highest number of any county in the state — but it is difficult to know for sure. 

The Department of State Hospitals, which runs the SVP program and contracts with Liberty, will not provide a county-by-county breakdown of CONREP releases, claiming that to do so would violate federal medical privacy laws and “best practices for data de-identification.” 

While the CONREP releases stoke anger in communities where they are placed, they are just a fraction of the total number of SVPs released, quietly and without any supervision.

These “unsupervised” releases from the hospital occur when someone who has been committed there for the SVP program is determined to no longer fit the legal criteria for that designation, or who is determined to no longer pose a threat to a community. SVPs also can file a petition in court on their own seeking that designation.

Data from DSH provided last year showed more than 300 men have been released unsupervised — more than five times the total number released via CONREP. They are released with none of the strict conditions CONREP individuals have, such as GPS monitoring, close monitoring by case workers, regular polygraphs and so on.

A different approach in San Diego

Why San Diego has become the home for more SVPs than any other place in the state is not entirely clear. It appears to be largely a product of how both the District Attorney’s Office and the Office of the Public Defender — which represents all SVPs in courts — handle SVP cases. 

Lawyers who worked on these cases for years say in San Diego cases are moved along quickly. That ultimately has the effect of making more SVPs in treatment eligible for release sooner, or quicker, than other counties.

State law requires SVPs to be placed in the county from which they were convicted. 

Every proposed release has led to an outcry from communities when they are informed that an SVP may be placed in their area. Though the men are carefully monitored — they wear GPS devices, are supervised by a team of mental health professionals and can be sent back to the state hospital in Coalinga for the slightest reason — that makes little difference against the jolt of fear and loathing that courses through communities. 

At a community meeting at the Jacumba Community Center in August, one woman succinctly voiced those fears to a crowd of about 30 people. “What you see,” she said, “are people hanging on for dear life to protect the children of our community.”

DSH officials are quick to point out that no one under CONREP supervision has committed a “sexual contact offense” in the history of the program. A state audit last year concluded just two CONREP releases — or 4% — were convicted of new offenses: one for possession of child pornography and the other for failing to register as a sex offender. That’s compared to 19% of unsupervised releases.

As the number of SVPs released in San Diego — and specifically to rural areas — has steadily climbed, the program has come under scrutiny. A 2023 law expanded the number of local entities DSH had to confer with before placement, and includes representatives from local law enforcement, county counsel’s office, and the district attorney’s office. 

In that same year state Republican Sen. Brian Jones, who represents the area where most SVPs have been placed in San Diego, successfully got the State Auditor to conduct a formal examination of the conditional release program — and Liberty Healthcare, the private company that since 2003 has had the sole contract with the state to run the program.

Liberty, based in Pennsylvania, has been paid some $93 million to run the CONREP program under a series of contracts and extensions.

While the state has tried four times to attract other bidders, only Liberty has responded.

The cost of the program has also escalated, nearly doubling from $6.6 million in 2018-19 to $11.5 million in 2022-23. The most recent contract projects Liberty will be paid $13.4 million in 2026-27.

For Jones, that’s wasted money. He said he thinks SVPs should never be released. But if they are, it should not be only to rural areas.

“If we are going to release them, they should be released on state property to be the state’s responsibility, to keep an eye on them,” he said. “Not neighborhoods, not our mothers, our grandmothers, our sisters, our daughters and other neighbors. It’s completely inappropriate for these SVPs to be in neighborhoods.”

Strict restrictions governing the placements that prohibit housing inmates near schools, day care centers, parks, churches and other places make rural areas more likely to have the space to put SVPs.

Usually after the initial protests over the placement of an SVP and resulting media coverage is over, little is heard from the individuals. The state says about one-third of those on CONREP had their release revoked for violating the terms of their release. 

Program

The route to an unwelcoming neighborhood for an SVP begins in prison, near the end of a sentence they are serving for specific sexual crimes. 

First, prison authorities and then the Department of State Hospitals determine if someone meets the criteria under state law for being a sexually violent predator.

If so, prosecutors from the county where the person was convicted are notified and file a petition seeking a court judgment designating the person as an SVP. That triggers a two-stage process: first, a probable cause hearing, where the judge makes a preliminary determination if the person is a sexually violent predator. If the answer is yes, the person is sent to the state hospital, pending the second stage — a trial where a jury or a judge will make a final determination.

Once at the hospital, a yearslong treatment cycle — SVPs are considered to have a mental illness driving their behavior — can begin. Inmates who have only the probable cause determination can begin getting treatment even before any formal trial, said Alexandra Knudson, the head of the civil commitment unit at the San Diego Public Defender. 

Inmates who do not do the therapy program can languish for years. But in San Diego, the District Attorney’s office and the Public Defender have taken an approach that moves cases along, said Deputy District Attorney Pat Espinoza, who is the head of the sex crimes unit.

“The lawyers on both sides are doing all that they can to litigate these in a timely manner,” he said. “That means these SVPs start their commitment and start going through the process of receiving the treatment that allows them to progress within the hospital system to reach that point where they can say, ‘I can file a petition for release.’”

In effect, moving quickly to a trial can in some cases help the inmate get out sooner. Another factor is the nature of these cases. Though individuals have been convicted of crimes, their confinement to the SVP program is done under mental health laws — and are considered to be civil law proceedings.

That is important, because unlike criminal trials — where a defendant has a constitutional right to a speedy trial — there is no such right in civil cases. It might take years for an inmate to get a trial once committed to the hospital. 

In 2023 the state Supreme Court for the first time ruled that there is a due process right to a “timely” trial for an SVP, but did not define what that meant. The court urged judges to “take due account of the individual’s interests in prompt adjudication and take decisive steps to guard against unjustified delay.”

Cost of delay

In recent years there have been steep costs to counties when trials were delayed.

In 2020, L.A. County paid out $4.5 million to a man whose trial was delayed for 17 years. The judge in that case blamed a “systemic breakdown” in the public defender system, noting the man had his case postponed numerous times with five different public defenders.

In 2021 the county paid out $2.15 million to a man whose trial had been delayed for 13 years. And in 2023 Alameda County paid out $500,000 to a SVP who had waited more than a dozen years for a trial that never came. 

With no firm legal timetable, and no requirement that inmates participate in the treatment program, people can languish for years, since an SVP commitment is by law for an indefinite period of time.

However, not going to trial right away may be a benefit both to the inmate, and the county. Once at the hospital they can start treatment and complete it with a finding they no longer pose a threat to the public.

That would lead to an unconditional release from the hospital — without the controversial, expensive and often lengthy process of finding housing in a community under the CONREP program. DSH said last year the average cost for treatment and supervision of a single SVP is $456,000 per year.

The state Supreme Court outlined some of this dynamic in the 2023 ruling.

 “Once a judge has found probable cause to believe an individual is an SVP, that individual is held in a state hospital and begins to receive mental health treatment — even before trial is ever held,” Associate Justice Leondra Kruger explained. “For this reason, both sides may have a common interest in delaying trial. From the individual’s perspective, allowing more time for treatment may ultimately improve the chance of success at trial, insofar as treatment may help address a mental disorder that a jury might otherwise find poses a risk to the public.” 

This may explain why L.A. County, the largest in the state, has had so few CONREP placements — only three since the inception of the program.

In San Diego, after a trial when someone is formally designated an SVP, lawyers with the Public Defender continue to press forward, Knudson said. 

“We put a lot of effort into continuing the level of representation for our client,” she said. “We have regular contact with them over the phone and over video, we make it a point to travel to Coalinga three to four times a year to meet with our clients. And we’re very involved in their treatment progress… to help them efficiently navigate a difficult system.”

While the CONREP process triggers anger and community opposition and plenty of publicity, many SVPs are quietly released from Coalinga State Hospital without the close supervision under CONREP.

Statewide, at least 326 people were unconditionally released from DSH between 2005 and 2023, the agency said in response to a Public Records Act request in 2024. That’s more than five times the number of CONREP releases.

In San Diego, 15 people have been unconditionally released since 2005, according to the District Attorney’s Office. Some got that status after a period of CONREP supervision, but most were deemed to no longer meet the criteria and were let go.

Those individuals are usually not on probation or parole, or CONREP’s responsibility. They have to register as a sex offender wherever they live, but face nearly no other restrictions.

Audit

The 2024 audit suggested that the state consider establishing transitional housing, or group homes, for offenders, arguing this would be a way to decrease the time between someone being ordered by a judge to be released and finding a home — an average of 17 months statewide.

Jones said the group home proposal, locating all CONREP releases on a piece of state land, should be the overall solution. “That’s one of the things we have been arguing from the beginning,” he said.

For now, however, the return of SVPs to San Diego continues — as does the community opposition. Gary Snavely, convicted of molesting two girls in 1987, is next in line.

Snavely has been released twice, once in 2007 and again in 2012. In 2007 he lasted for only a few months, and was sent back to the hospital for violating terms of his release.

In 2014 he again was released under CONREP supervision, and again was returned for not complying with terms of his release. In both instances, Snavely was assigned to live in Jacumba. This time, he might be headed for a new community: the small mountain town of Julian.