CALIFORNIA
SFGate

Associated Press

SACRAMENTO — Shortly after 2 a.m. on April 6, 2010, a guard at Salinas Valley State Prison noticed Alan Ager’s cellmate trying to stuff something under a mattress. It was Ager, blood trickling from his mouth and a cloth noose tied around his neck.

The convicted child molester died 10 days later without regaining consciousness, his death earning his cellmate a second life sentence.

California state prisoners are killed at a rate that is double the national average — and sex offenders like Ager account for a disproportionate number of victims, according to an Associated Press analysis of corrections records. …

In Massachusetts, state policy calls for sex offenders to be placed in a “therapeutic community” that offers intensive treatment aimed at changing their behavior, preventing relapses and preparing them for eventual release.

The state had a high-profile inmate homicide in 2003, when John Geoghan,…