SAN DIEGO -- California Attorney General Jerry Brown, who has long opposed the death penalty, said the system in which sex offenders are tracked or monitored is not broken but is in need of some repairs.

Brown made his first stop in San Diego Thursday as a Democratic gubernatorial candidate, and spoke 10News’ Joe Little at the Marston House in Balboa Park about a variety of topics, including the recent rape and murder of Chelsea King. He arrived in San Diego amid a public outcry for reform in the state's system that deals with sexual predators.

Little asked Brown, "Did our system here in California fail Chelsea King?"

"The system did fail, and it's a system, by the way, that has been built up over decades,” said Brown.

Brown, who was governor from 1975 to 1983, said somewhere along the way California stopped sentencing sexual deviants to indeterminate terms, where only a parole board could let them out.

"The parole board wouldn't let you out unless they thought you were rehabilitated or suitable, and I think there were some indications this man was not suitable,” said Brown, referring to accused killer John Gardner.

Gardner had served one prison sentence but was released against a doctor's recommendation. Brown said, "That's dangerous and it's dumb. So we need to change the way our prisons operate, our sentencing system and give more discretion to the parole board so that dangerous, vicious people do not walk the streets again."

Brown added that if a sex offender is released, the state needs to do a better job of tracking them.

"Keep tabs on them in a very controlled way. That takes a type of focus and a type of system that we don't have,” said Brown. "It'll never be 100-percent perfect, but we can make it a lot better than it is today."

Brown said the system succeeded when the state’s DNA lab in Richmond positively linked a sample found on Chelsea’s clothing to Gardner -- a link that lead to Gardner’s arrest.