Registered perverts have no room at the inn, must seek shelter from hurricane at jail instead, Florida sheriff says



The sheriff of a Florida county where Hurricane Milton is expected to hit has issued a warning for registered sex offenders who need shelter from the storm: Do not attempt to seek refuge at the designated public facility. Instead, go directly to jail.

As of 8 a.m. Wednesday, Flagler County residents have been under an order to evacuate the area in preparation for Hurricane Milton. Those who remain behind and need a more durable location to ride out the storm are invited to bring their families and up to four pets to Rymfire Elementary School in Palm Coast along the eastern coast of Florida about 25 miles south of St. Augustine.

"The shelter will also accommodate residents who are from an area under an evacuation order and have no other place to go," a message from Flagler County Emergency Management said.

'If you prey on this community you will ride out the storm at the county jail.'

While the public shelter will seemingly welcome most residents in need, there are some members of the community who may not go there. They include those convicted of sex-related offenses who have since been released back into society.

"If you are a predator, you are not allowed at the Rymfire shelter," Sheriff Rick Staly said at a press conference on Wednesday morning.

Instead, Staly said, officials have already made other arrangements for these potentially dangerous individuals.

"If you are designated under Florida law as a sex predator and you need shelter, you need to go to the Sheriff Perry Hall Inmate Detention Facility," Staly continued. He then quickly noted, "That's the county jail."

"We will accommodate you in the lobby of that building. You've probably seen it before, I would guess," he added with a straight face.

The clip of those remarks can be seen here. The full press conference can be viewed below.

Sheriff Staly also issued a warning against would-be looters tempted to exploit the situation and "prey" upon vulnerable residents in Flagler County.

"To the criminals who think they can prey on our community, just remember during times of disaster, we have extra deputies on patrol," Staly noted. "Our real-time crime center is up and functional, and we have lots of cameras in this county. ... If you prey on this community you will ride out the storm at the county jail."

The evacuation order remains in effect in Flagler County until 7:30 a.m. Thursday.

"We'll get through this together," Sheriff Staly assured everyone.

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Commentary: Trans mania will subside. When it does, there must be a reckoning and a registry.



Trans mania will peter out, as did the hysteria around COVID. It's not a matter of if, but of when, although a great many lives will likely be destroyed in the meantime.

When the spell breaks and the progressive masses withdraw their support for mutilating children and the mentally ill, it is unlikely they'll examine what they got wrong or check in on those they've savaged.

Instead, self-absolved of all wrongdoing, they will glom onto the next lunatic fad, just as the American left did after Krushchev spoiled their red dream in 1956. If the pandemic and its aftermath are any indication, they will do so seamlessly, painlessly, and uncritically.

It is important that those responsible for the mutilations that have already taken place do not go unpunished or at the very least unnoted — particularly not the physicians who violated their oaths, the parents who violated sacred trusts, the teachers who transformed schools into breeding grounds for transgenderism, the organizations that turned victims into lifelong dependents, and the lawmakers who made it all possible.

Since it is unlikely they can be tried retroactively for their crimes against humanity, it is prudent now to consider other ways to hold them accountable and in so doing ensure that the left’s transition to its next lunatic fad will not be so seamless, painless, or uncritical.

Reaching the tipping point

While the socio-political force the editor of First Things calls the “Rainbow Reich” remains incredibly powerful, it appears increasingly exposed on the transgender front, where its pronoun protectors are being flanked by an informal coalition of feminists, women’s sports organizations, parental rights groups, conservatives, and the common man’s common sense.

The resistance is presently piecemeal, but building.

For instance, late last month, two female ESPN hosts cosigned All-American swim star Riley Gaines’ protest of the invasion of women’s sports by transvestites.

Republican lawmakers in Montana followed the example of others around the country in passing legislation to protect children from confusion-affirming genital mutilation, experimental puberty blockers, and cross-sex hormones, despite veiled threats from their Democratic colleagues and attempts at intimidation by leftist radicals who stormed the Capitol last Monday.

Twitter is no longer taking an active role in promoting transgender propaganda and punishing its critics, having recently rolled back its policy on penalizing users who refer to others in accordance with their biological sex.

The transgender movement is also suffering a break in its ranks with former proponents baring their hearts and showing their wounds.

Personal stories of detransition told by people who regret the irreversible medical interventions they suffered are now receiving greater attention and more serious consideration.

It would not surprise me if Jared Jennings – the boy whose parents sought to transition him at the age of five, then paraded around on television – will one day turn on the pronoun praetorians. After all, his regrets can serve as the dark cloud to a silver lining.

When we reach the tipping point, what can we expect to be said of people like his mother, Jeanette Jennings, who admitted on camera to daily forcing her son to keep his groin wound fresh? Will there be a reckoning for the Miami surgeon who cut off so many girls’ healthy breasts that she dubbed herself “Dr. Teetus Deletus”? Will the Washington state Democrats who passed legislation allowing strangers to more or less kidnap children keen on sex changes be forced to apologize?

The precedent does not breed optimism.

Rinse and repeat

Consider the ease with which Brown University economist Emily Oster wrote herself and others formerly supportive of lockdowns, mandated vaccines, masking outdoors, shuttered schools, and other so-called health protocols back into America's good graces.

TheBlaze previously reported that Oster demanded in an Oct. 31 Atlantic article, "Let's declare a pandemic amnesty."

Oster glossed over the more severe measures taken and rules enforced in the name of public safety, instead referencing the arbitrary closure of beaches and the unjustifiable closure of schools as two examples of "getting it wrong."

Oster argued that in "the face of so much uncertainty ... getting something wrong wasn't a moral failing."

"We didn't know," Oster wrote, indicating that ignorance justified the rest. "We need to forgive one another for what we did and said when we were in the dark about COVID."

The trouble with Oster's claim to ignorance – as well as with any future claim to ignorance about the inhumanity of puberty blockers or sex changes on kids – is that even when progressives do know better, they don't change, but rather continue down the wrong path and summon others to follow suit.

A January 2022 Heartland Institute and Rasmussen Reports survey found that 45% of Democrats, whom Oster might strain to have us believe were still "in the dark about COVID," said they "would favor governments requiring citizens to temporarily live in designated facilities or locations if they refuse to get a COVID-19 vaccine."

The same post-pandemic survey found that 29% of Democrats also supported tearing children away from their parents if the parents refused the jab.

Like the American reds who went on defending communism after Stalin's crimes were exposed by a fellow Soviet in the 1950s, progressives went on defending COVID tyranny after the narrative had begun to crumble.

Despite progressives' tyrannical wrongheadedness when it came to COVID, America apparently saw fit to let them off the hook, perhaps heeding the postwar wisdom of Abraham Lincoln and endeavoring to express "malice toward none" in hopes of binding up "the nation's wounds."

What good is there in binding up wounds and hoping they heal if the very same aggressor means to slash again with a different blade? In permitting the Randi Weingartens of the world go back to work destroying children by the school-full after proving themselves both dangerous and unrepentant?

If the right does not confront and disarm the knife-wielding maniac, all the bandages and antiseptic in the world won't save America.

In the case of the COVID tyrants, Blaze TV’s Steve Deace called for Nuremberg-like trials. Cynically, as it pertains to the trans maniacs, I’m aiming lower.

National registry of sex-change offenders

Red-state Republicans are presently taking steps to stop the bloodletting. When the obstacles laid before them by activists and the Biden Department of Justice are finally overcome, future confusion-affirming butchers and their co-conspirators will be thrown in jail and/or fined.

These measures only address future crimes. What of the offenders and crimes of yesteryear?

The law cannot be applied retroactively, particularly not when the horrors inflicted on minors were at the time not just legal but celebrated by the executive branch, the media, big business, and the ideologically captive medical establishment.

Nevertheless, it is critically important that Americans, particularly those on the right, take every lawful measure possible to hold the butchers, druggists, and propagandists to account, especially since recent history indicates they are unlikely to independently assume any responsibility whatsoever.

Readers more creative than I will no doubt come up with more effective ways, but I figured I'd at least proffer one half-measure.

America presently puts those who prey upon children on sex offender registries.

Registered offenders have to introduce themselves when moving into an area. They are searchable in a database so that parents, employers, and others can "identify location information on sex offenders living, working and attending school not only in their own neighborhoods but in other nearby states and communities."

In lieu of torches and pitchforks, I propose a nongovernmental sex-change offender registry to draw what Alexis de Tocqueville would call a "formidable circle" around those who were ready and willing to sacrifice children to the Moloch of our age – around officials and persons once or still in positions of authority who championed child mutilation, mutilated children, or directly profited from kids' transmogrification.

Such a registry would provide parents with the knowledge and confidence that they aren't leaving their children in a classroom, doctor's office, or other setting with a maniac. The registry might, for instance, dissuade parents from enrolling their child in a particular school. Alternatively, it might prompt them to select a school whose staff didn't spend the past several years trying to transition minors.

Employers who deal with children might also like to know whether prospective hires have advocated for the butchery or chemical abuse of their clientele.

Such a registry might also prove consequential for lawmakers, serving a similar purpose as a political scorecard, not unlike CPAC's congressional rating system or the NRA Political Victory Fund's grading system. This way, when the next bad idea comes around and progressive representatives jump on board, they will do so shackled to a record voters can easily access.

By actively naming and shaming those who today advocate for the medical maligning of children, it may be possible to chasten the bandits and possibly spare America a few more scars.

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Convicted sex offender with history of crimes against minors identifies as intersex female, petitions for transfer to women's prison



A convicted sex offender with a history of sex crimes against minors petitioned to be transferred from a Connecticut men's prison to a women's prison because the individual now identifies as an intersex female.

Brandy Wood also goes by the aliases Kyle Bailey, Steven Bennett, Kunani-Brady Moanam, and Kalakaua-Wood. However, Connecticut's sexual offender registry officially lists Wood's gender as female. Yet, Wood is currently housed at Cheshire Correctional Institution – a men's prison.

On Wednesday, Wood's attorney announced that he plans to request that his client be transferred to a women's prison. Attorney Michael Miller said that Wood wants to be housed in a gender-appropriate prison. During Wood's sentencing on March 14, Miller will request that his client be transferred to the York Correctional Institution in Niantic – Connecticut's only women's prison.

Judge Hillary Strackbein responded by saying that prison accommodations are the decision of the state's Department of Correction.

The Day reported, "In 2018, the state passed a law that establishes standards for treatment of prisoners with gender identity that differs from their assigned sex at birth, including provisions that give them the right to be housed in a facility that matches their gender identity. The law also allows prisoners to have access to prison commissary items, clothing and programming consistent with the prisoner's gender identity and to be searched by a staff member whose gender matches the prisoner's."

The Connecticut Department of Correction's policy states that it "shall identify, diagnose, treat and manage inmates who identify as gender non-conforming, and/or who have an intersex condition."

Wood, 28, wants to be transferred to the women's prison because Wood identifies as an intersex female.

The Intersex Society of North America defines intersex as:

Intersex is a general term used for a variety of conditions in which a person is born with a reproductive or sexual anatomy that doesn’t seem to fit the typical definitions of female or male. For example, a person might be born appearing to be female on the outside, but having mostly male-typical anatomy on the inside. Or a person may be born with genitals that seem to be in-between the usual male and female types—for example, a girl may be born with a noticeably large clitoris, or lacking a vaginal opening, or a boy may be born with a notably small penis, or with a scrotum that is divided so that it has formed more like labia. Or a person may be born with mosaic genetics, so that some of her cells have XX chromosomes and some of them have XY.

The organization compared the sex spectrum to the color spectrum, and argued that there are a myriad of colors as well as a plethora of genders.

Wood was in New London Superior Court to plead no contest to the charge of risk of injury to a minor.

In 2015, Wood was convicted of two counts of risk of injury to a minor and second-degree sexual assault of a minor for "forcible sexual contact with a 15-year-old female." At the time, Wood violated parole.

Wood violated parole again with the latest child sex abuse allegedly committed in 2021.

Wood purportedly engaged in an inappropriate online relationship with a 13-year-old girl in Park City, Utah. Wood sent nude photos and lewd videos to the girl and coerced the minor to send naked photos, according to the arrest warrant affidavit. Wood also masturbated on video for the girl, according to police. Wood allegedly groomed the victim by sending her gifts such as a "fur body suit." The girl's parents were reportedly tipped off of the inappropriate relationship when they discovered the fur suit.

Reduxx reported, "During a police interview, the girl told authorities that Wood had 'both a penis and a vagina.' However, law enforcement officials discovered photos of Wood wearing a latex full-body suit designed to resemble a woman, which could account for the child’s confusion regarding Wood’s anatomy."

Wood allegedly lied to the victim, and claimed to be a private investigator. Wood threatened the girl that Wood knew the victim's address and would "get on a plane and come find her," police wrote in the arrest warrant affidavit. Wood purportedly demanded, "If you don't send me nudes I'm going to come to your house and have sex with you."

Wood is expected to be sentenced to 30 months in prison followed by five years of probation and be placed on the state's sex offender registry.

However, the family of the victim wants Wood to be sentenced to a longer prison sentence, according to Assistant State's Attorney Anne Ferryman. The family said the girl was left "feeling suicidal" after the traumatic experience. The girl is currently receiving psychiatric treatment, according to the parents.

Illegal alien child sex offender deported 10 times in the last 2 years arrested again in Texas



The arrests of two illegal alien sex offenders at the U.S.-Mexico border this week once again spotlighted the brokenness of the country's immigration enforcement system under President Joe Biden.

In a news release Tuesday, U.S. Customs and Border Protection announced that agents in the Del Rio Sector apprehended two Mexican nationals for illegally entering the country with past sex abuse convictions — one of whom has been deported a whopping 10 times in the last two years.

Humberto Alvarez-Peralta, 42, was reportedly picked up by agents shortly after crossing the border on April 13. A subsequent biometric background investigation revealed that he had been convicted on a second-degree felony charge of sexual assault of a child in Liberty, Texas, in 1997.

Despite being repeatedly apprehended and removed from the U.S., Alvarez-Peralta continued to re-enter the country seemingly without consequence. He was most recently deported in March 2022, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

Another illegal alien sex offender — 63-year-old Hipolito Hernandez-Acosta — was reportedly apprehended on April 14 shortly after illegally entering the country. During processing, it was revealed that Hernandez-Acosta has a lengthy criminal record that includes a felony conviction for statutory rape in Georgia in 1995.

He, too, had been ordered for removal from the country on three separate occasions.

Under U.S. law, illegal alien convicted felons with prior removals can be prosecuted for re-entry after deportation, a charge that carries a possible sentence of 20 years in prison. However, it appears that federal authorities refrained from taking such an action against Alvarez-Peralta and Hernandez-Acosta until now.

TheBlaze reached out to the Department of Homeland Security seeking answers as to why. This article will be updated if a response is offered.

In its news release, CBP noted that the apprehension of sex offenders at the U.S.-Mexico border has been on the rise of late, especially in the Del Rio Sector.

Earlier in the month, agents arrested two other border-crossers with past sex offense convictions. Prior to that, between October 2021 and March 2022, agents arrested 19 sex offenders in that region alone.

During that same time period, Del Rio agents have reportedly encountered more than 660 criminal migrants in total.

Yet even as the situation on the border continues to deteriorate, the Biden administration last week moved to end Title 42 — a Trump-era rule that allows border agents to turn away illegal immigrants over COVID-19 health concerns. The policy change is expected to result in a manifold increase of illegal border crossings.

Yes, The Senate Should Investigate Ketanji Brown Jackson’s Leniency Towards Sex Predators

Hawley's assessment of Jackson's record is squarely in the lane of jurisprudential analysis and the Judiciary Committee should take note.

'Sex offender' to be replaced by 'adults who commit sexual offenses' in Colorado since latter is less stigmatizing for sex offenders receiving treatment



Colorado's Sex Offender Management Board voted Monday to stop using the term "sex offender" in treatment contexts and begin using "adults who commit sexual offenses" since it's a less stigmatizing term for such individuals, KCNC-TV reported.

What are the details?

The terminology change is meant to reflect "person-first" language, the station said, and only affects use in treatment. KCNC added that the term "sex offender" won't change in the state's law or criminal justice system.

But the station said some are concerned the change may be a slippery slope in that direction and reduce accountability among sex offenders.

Kimberly Corbin, a rape survivor, spoke out against changing the term "sex offender" to something less stigmatizing, KCNC noted.

"I'm involved today after hearing that it would be improper or offensive in some manner for me to refer to the man who raped me as a sex offender," Corbin said, according to the station.

Kimberly CorbinImage source: KCNC-TV video screenshot

She added to KCNC that "it's very, very damaging" when people are "labeled" as a result of their "gender, race, sexuality, [or] ability" since "those are not their choices"; however, Corbin emphasized that sex offenders make choices to commit sexual crimes and don't require a less stigmatizing label.

But Derek Logue disagrees, the station said: "Referring to me by a label for something I did half my life ago is inappropriate and downright offensive."

Logue said the term "client" would be better, KCNC reported — and public defender Kathy Heffron agreed: "It takes into consideration the uniqueness of individuals who are receiving treatment."

The board voted 10-6 to employ the term "adults who commit sexual offenses," the station said.

'Intent to remove accountability'

Supporters of the terminology change told KCNC it will reduce recidivism — but opponents insisted it only will reduce accountability since victims and survivors live with their labels for life.

Jessica Dotter with the Colorado District Attorneys' Council told the station she's concerned the wording change — and person-first language in general — "is an intent to remove accountability from offenders and to diminish the experience of the victims."

She added to the Denver Post that the "adults who commit sexual offenses" term "fails to convey or represent any sort of victim-centeredness" and that sexual abuse victims "want their offender to be held accountable and to be known as an offender."

Anything else?

KDVR-TV reported that the terminology change isn't quite yet a done deal: A 20-day comment period will take place so the public can voice opinions on the matter before the board meets again in December.

More from KCNC:

Last year, lawmakers considered a bill that would have, among other things, eliminated the term "sexually violent predator" from statutes but they ended up pulling it. Meanwhile, a task force charged with sentencing reform is considering asking the legislature to change terms like "defendant," "convict," and "felon" to "justice-involved people."

Ironically, the Sex Offender Management Board will not drop "sex offender" from its name because only the state Legislature can change the name of the board.

Sex offenders and a Latin Kings gang member arrested within migrant groups by Border Patrol agents



As the U.S. continues to be inundated with migrants along its southern border, U.S. Customs and Border Protection has reported that Rio Grande Valley Border Patrol Sector agents arrested several sex offenders on Friday and Saturday, and a gang member on Monday.

The agency reported Friday morning that authorities arrested a man who was within a group of migrants that consisted mostly of families, and records checks revealed that the Guatemalan individual had a record of arrest and conviction for sexual abuse of a minor.

Later Friday, agents apprehended a group consisting of 18 single adults not long after they had unlawfully entered the U.S., and within that group there was a Honduran individual who had been "convicted of criminal sexual conduct with a victim between 13-15 years of age in Minnesota," according to CBP.

On Saturday, authorities arrested a Nicaraguan individual within a group of seven people who had unlawfully entered the country — the man had been "arrested in 2008 in Ventura, California, and charged with sex with a minor more than three years younger," and had also been convicted, according to the news release.

CBP also noted Monday that authorities arrested six individuals in the brush trying to circumvent a checkpoint, and records checks showed that a Salvadoran man is a member of the Latin Kings gang. The man had multiple prior removals from the U.S., according to CBP.

The U.S. has been facing a massive surge of migrants at the southern border.

CBP reported 188,829 southwest land border encounters for the month of June. The numbers have been on the rise every month so far during fiscal year 2021, which began in October.

But the crisis is not showing signs of abating: A court filing last week noted that according to preliminary data, CBP probably encountered around 210,000 people in July.

In a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Monday, a group of 20 House Republicans demanded information related to the border crisis, and noted that if they do not receive a response to their various inquires by Sept. 6, they will take action to require to department to respond.

New California Law Could Put Male Serial Rapists Into Women’s Prisons

A new California law that gives male inmates the right to be housed in female prisons provides no protection for women inmates or guards.

Horowitz: Number of sex offenders caught at the border tripled since last year



"Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled … sex offenders … yearning to …" Wait … what?

Customs and Border Protection announced yesterday that more than 100,000 illegal aliens were apprehended at the border. That is more than any time in recent history except for the peak months of the 2019 border crisis. And it's getting worse every day. But what few people have noticed is that it's not just impoverished illegal aliens coming in. The cartels and smugglers use that flow of family units and children to tie down border agents with processing and medical care while they bring in some of the worst human beings alive, including previously deported sex offenders.

Buried in the newly released border apprehension numbers is the deduced fact that year-to-date, CBP is apprehending, on average, more than three times the number of sex offenders they did in fiscal year 2020.

Image source: CBP.gov

As you can see, after just five months of this fiscal year, CBP has caught more sex offenders than it did during the entire FY 2020, for an annualized pace of more than three times that of last year and greater than any other year since the agency started tracking apprehensions by criminal category.

Remember, under the Trump administration, many criminal aliens and sex offenders were deported. Now is the perfect time for them to re-enter the country. The cartels have been known to strategically bring over the criminal aliens who don't want to meet a border agent while the smugglers are tying down the agents with the family units. The cartels typically charge more to bring over the high-value individuals. Thus, if 210 were caught despite this successful business model, how many of them do you think we did not catch while the Border Patrol plays babysitter?

Based on data obtained by TheBlaze from a border agent, just for the month of February, CBP recorded 26,825 "gotaways." They calculate these numbers based on a mix of counting footprints in the ground and adding them to the hits they get on all the cameras and sensors. Then they compare those suspected infiltrations against the apprehension numbers. The difference between the two is the rough estimation of how many people got away that day in the given area of operation.

However, given how taxed the Border Patrol is at this point, it's truly hard to imagine they are fully aware of all the gotaways. One veteran border patrol agent who spoke to TheBlaze anonymously because he was not authorized to speak to the media believes those numbers are much higher.

"None of my partners are properly counting and recording the gotaway numbers," said the agent, who patrols the front lines in Texas. "With the stress of the border flow and all the COVID regulations on our operations, that is the last thing on the mind of an agent. The number of gotaways in Texas is likely exponentially higher."

What this all means is that the invitation for the world's impoverished people to crash our border is allowing the cartels to strategically bring over many more criminal aliens than we can imagine. As I reported earlier, the Cochise County Sheriff's Department estimates that only 35% of those detected on their cameras are apprehended and that most of them are drug runners and criminal aliens.

As I've reported from covering immigration over the years, sex offenders, particularly child sex offenders, have been rampant among the illegal alien population from certain countries. A quick look at the past few years of ICE enforcement data reveals that ICE typically arrests illegal aliens who have a cumulative tally of 12,000-15,000 sex offense charges and convictions every year. That's an awful lot of sex offenders who have been deported in recent years and are likely trying to get back into the country while Biden is offering them the perfect cover of the family units.

According to data from Girls Not Brides, a global nonprofit against child marriage, the child marriage rates for girls in Latin American countries from which we are seeing an increase in illegal immigration are particularly high, especially in rural areas. The organization estimate that 34% of all married Honduran women were with their male spouses as minors.

One report from only 30 percent of North Carolina counties found that in just an 18-month period in 2018 and 2019, more than 331 illegal aliens have been charged with 1,172 child rapes and child sexual assaults. Just one year's arrests by ICE's small forces netted illegal aliens who were charged with a total of 6,888 "sex offenses," 5,350 "sexual assaults," and 1,739 "commercialized sexual assaults."

Consequently, every time you see large numbers of illegal alien families tying down our border agents, just realize that thousands of previously deported criminal aliens, including sex offenders, are sneaking in surreptitiously and being brought in strategically.

Even for the few criminal aliens who are caught, you can't assume that they will be re-incarcerated. Not only have ICE removals in the interior plummeted 60% under the Biden administration, but officials are releasing even some of the criminals who are freshly caught re-entering the country illegally. U.S. District Judge Drew Tipton, who is hearing Texas' challenge to Biden's order suspending deportations, said that recent human smugglers caught in Texas were released. Human smuggling is a felony which would have gotten then immediately removed in the past.

The flood of criminal aliens together with the torrent of migrants is the biggest reason why the border wall needs to be completed. One Texas lawmaker is pushing a bill that would enable the Lone Star State to go it alone and complete the wall. However, given that what comes to Texas doesn't stay in Texas, all the states have an obligation to help Texas fund the wall. After all, do we really need the world's sex offenders to come here, besides our own?

California Supreme Court rules thousands of sex offenders in the state are eligible for early parole



The California Supreme ruled Monday that thousands of inmates convicted of nonviolent sex crimes are eligible for early release, the Associated Press reported.

The ruling was issued as the high court considered whether sex offenders should be excluded from Proposition 57, a voter-approved ballot measure passed in November 2016 aimed at reducing the state's prison population. The measure called for inmates sentenced for nonviolent felonies to be eligible for early parole consideration.

"The initiative's language provides no indication that the voters intended to allow the [Corrections] Department to create a wholesale exclusion from parole consideration based on an inmate's sex offense convictions when the inmate was convicted of a nonviolent felony," Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye wrote in the court's unanimous decision.

"[The ballot measure] is not ambiguous concerning its scope regarding offenders who were previously convicted of a registerable sex offense or who are currently convicted of a registerable sex offense that the Department has itself defined as nonviolent," the ruling continued.

Former California Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown, who sponsored the measure that would eventually go on to be approved by 64% of voters, has repeatedly argued that it was never meant to cover sex offenders. In line with Brown's thinking, the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation has prohibited the parole board from considering early release for sex offenders since the measure's implementation.

But on Monday, the state's high court ruled that the department was wrong for doing so given the plain language of the proposition.

Now up to 20,000 inmates imprisoned for sex crimes classified as nonviolent under California law — such as pimping, engaging in consensual sex with a minor, and possessing child pornography — will be eligible for early parole consideration, according to Sacramento attorney Janice Bellucci, who argued the case.

The court, however, said the number of eligible inmates is actually much lower at 4,400. The majority of felons registered in the state's sex offender database were convicted of violent crimes, though Bellucci said the classification of violent and nonviolent crimes is subject to change upon corrections officials rewriting their regulations.

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, Bellucci insisted "society will be safe" by noting that there are stringent safeguards to make sure inmates granted parole don't go on committing more crimes. They are often monitored electronically 24 hours a day for years, sometimes even decades; they undergo counseling and rehabilitation programs; and they return to prison if they violate the terms of their parole.

Corrections Department spokeswoman Dana Simas also sought to ease concerns over the ruling, saying it "does not mean that sex offenders will automatically be released to the community," only that they can appear before the parole board.

"[The board] will assess their case factors individually, including whether they continue to propose a public safety risk," she added.