Report: Convicted pedophiles in California are usually released in <1 year

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Pedophiles are getting less than a year prison time after a range of horrific acts, including raping kids under 14, a DailyMail.com investigation reveals.

Analysis of a California database of sex offenders shows thousands of child molesters are being let out after just a few months, despite sentencing guidelines.

Current and former sex crime prosecutors said the figures are 'terrifying' and 'shameful'.

More than 7,000 sex offenders were convicted of 'lewd or lascivious acts with a child under 14 years of age' but were let out of prison the same year they were incarcerated, data from the California Megan's Law database says.

Others who committed some of the worst child sex crimes on the statute books served similarly short sentences, including 365 pedophiles convicted of continuous sexual abuse of a child who spent less than 12 months in prison, 39 cases of sodomy with a child under 16, and three cases of kidnapping a child under 14 'with intent to commit lewd or lascivious acts', according to the data.

Former Los Angeles sex crimes prosecutor Samuel Dordulian told DailyMail.com he was 'shocked' by the statistics and described them as 'frightening for society'.

'Statistics clearly show that pedophiles don't get reformed. They're going to come out and they're going to commit again,' Dordulian said.

'Letting these people out early, we're allowing for a lot more victimization. And that's terrifying.'

It is unclear whether the Megan's Law database prison time statistics are similar for other states, as DailyMail.com was only able to obtain detailed sex offender data for California.

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According the US Justice Department, sex offenders are at least four times more likely than other criminals to be rearrested for a sex crime.

Some of the offenses committed by pedophiles in the Megan's Law database were misdemeanors such as indecent exposure or attempting to send lewd pictures to children, and convicts received less jail time.

But the average time served for some severe and heinous crimes was similarly short.

The most common offense in the database was 'lewd or lascivious acts with a child under 14 years of age', committed 19,441 times. Despite its severity, the average time served for this crime was just two years and 11 months.

And 7,152 pedophiles who committed this crime served less than a year.

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