A convicted sex offender has been arrested for allegedly molesting two sisters, aged 13 and 15, after breaking into their home and threatening them.
Rithy Mam, 33, who was previously found guilty of child stalking, had removed his GPS ankle monitor in September before entering the girls' home in Stockton, California. He was later arrested in a public park and is now in custody on felony child molestation charges.
Mam committed the crime after being arrested three times in two months last year on similar accusations. However, he was later released because California's legislation on parolees has been relaxed due to overcrowding in prisons.
He is one of thousands of child molesters and rapists on parole who are getting away with new crimes after disabling their GPS trackers because they no longer fear lengthy jail time, recent figures have shown.
In the past 18 months, there have been 3,400 arrest warrants in California, mostly for known sex offenders, after it was decided that parole violators should be put in county jail and not state prisons which are bursting to capacity.
Although the study is based solely on California prison statistics, across the U.S. federal prisons are faced with the constant pressure of overcrowding, suggesting that similar measures could be introduced elsewhere.
America's prison system is at breaking point - with overcrowding in the nation's jails at its highest for eight years in 2012.
There are currently more than two million Americans behind bars. The worst hit state is California which houses 140,000 inmates when its 33 adult prisons are only designed to hold a maximum of 80,000.
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TXT 24
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