BORREGO SPRINGS, Calif. — In a matter of weeks, convicted sexually violent predator Douglas Badger will be housed in a residential neighborhood in Borrego Springs, as he remains under supervision. This placement by California's Department of Hospitals is moving forward despite fierce opposition by the community.
Also moving forward are plans to request a formal audit of the current placement system.
Sexually violent predator Badger is set to move into a three-bedroom house on Zuni Trail in Borrego Springs later this month: just across the street from a family with children.
"Our plan was to grow old here," said Terrie Kellmeyer, who moved to Borrego Springs six years ago with her three children, two of whom are deaf.
"It's a place where I felt that my kids could just grow up and run around and feel safe in the neighborhood," Kellmeyer told CBS 8.
She added that that that sense of safety is now gone, after a judge in March approved Badger's placement into a house across the street, despite intense public protests.
The 80-year-old, diagnosed with schizophrenia and sexual sadism. has served five separate prison terms for convictions ranging from child molestation to kidnapping to sexual assault.
"Douglas Badger is moving in, a sexually violent predator," she added, "a stone's throw away from me, and everything has to change."
Kellmeyer said that she and her family are now moving, forced out by this placement
"I'm losing my home," she added. "I'm losing my home."
CBS 8 asked California Senate Minority Leader Brian Jones whether the current system is working.
"I would say that it is not working," Jones said.
Jones is now calling for an audit of the state's conditional release program for sexually violent predators, or "SVPs", who are disproportionately placed in rural communities like Borrego Springs and Jacumba
"It is not fair for these neighborhoods," Jones told CBS 8.
This proposed audit would examine the state's exclusive contract with Liberty Health Care, which has managed California's sexually-violent-predator conditional release program since 2003. This includes finding housing for these sexually violent predators, as well as overseeing their ongoing treatment and providing supervision through the use of a GPS device.
"It has never been re-bid," Jones said of state's contract with Liberty. "It has never been scrutinized."
Jones said this audit is crucial to getting clear answers to a program that he says is shrouded in secrecy.
"Most importantly, what is the recidivism rate of these sexually violent predators once they are released to Liberty?," Jones asked. "How many of them have to go back?"
"How many of them re-offend, which is the worst part of this whole program... is that we have these monsters in prison, we let them out and then they re-offend," Jones continued. "That is just unconscionable to me that we would allow that to happen."
This audit would also examine exactly where our tax dollars are going. According to Jones, California is currently paying as much as $350,000 a year for each of these sexually violent predators released into the community.
Douglas Badger will be the third sexually violent predator released into San Diego county in the past year, bringing the total county-wide to eight.
"In other states, they actually have a much better program," said Borrego Springs resident Sarah Rogers, who holds a PhD in psychology.
Rogers has been asked to testify next month in Sacramento on the need for this audit, a topic she has studied extensively.
"Any other state would be a better model than what California is doing," she said.
"For instance, in the state of Florida, they must complete in-patient treatment," Rogers said. Rogers pointed out that Liberty Healthcare had previously been in charge of Florida's SVP in-house treatment program, until the state opted not to renew its contract in 2005.
"Since they got rid of Liberty Healthcare they have a much better program in place today," Rogers said.
She added that in California, in-patient treatment by sexually violent predators is only completed 40 percent of the time before being conditionally released into the community.
"In the state of Florida, its more than 95% treatment completion rate inside their in-patient treatment," Rogers added.
Rogers also pointed out that in the Tampa area, some sexually violent predators have been placed in group home settings in industrial, not residential, areas, removed from families with children.
In a previous court hearing, in which the public was allowed to question Liberty Healthcare officials. Rogers asked why this isn't done here in California.
"They said, well, we have never had any one come to us with a rental in an industrial area... nobody has proposed that to us," Rogers told CBS 8. "So we said, 'We're proposing this to now. This is where you need to look!'"
Jones said that he would like to return to the past system of placing sexually violent predators into housing on either fire camps on state property or in a trailer located on prison grounds: a practice that was successfully challenged in court.
"They are still paroled, they're not in prison," he explained. "The state is keeping an eye on them instead of some unsuspecting neighborhood with children and families."
These families include Terrie Kellmeyer's, who believes the judge did not truly listen to her or her community in placing Badger on her street.
"This could happen to anybody... it just happened to happen to our street and our little neighborhood," Kellmeyer added. "But there are many more sexually violent predators that they are trying to place and there needs to be a better process and system for determining where they are going to live."
Jones plans to officially request this audit next month. If approved, it should take roughly 18 months to complete.
In a statement in response to this proposed audit, a state spokesperson said, "The California Department of State Hospitals remains committed to providing effective treatment in a safe environment and in a fiscally responsible manner and to assure public safety."
WATCH RELATED: Judge allows placement of sexually violent predator in Borrego Springs home (Aug. 2022).