Posted on 10/29/2005 2:46:16 PM PDT by wagglebee
Colorado officials can't find records of evaluations for more than 1,200 convicted sex offenders, so all the offenders must be studied to determine if any are sexually violent predators.
More than 900 of the offenders are in prison, and 337 are on probation, living in Colorado communities.
When someone is designated a sexually violent predator, his or her photo and background is posted on a state Web site, and law officers can call neighbohood meetings to warn people the predators may be living near them.
The evaluations are required by a state law enacted in 2001, but either weren't done or can't be found.
The state court system reported Friday it can't find records of evaluations for 337 sex offenders convicted since May 30, 2001, and who are now on probation, according to Gerald Marroney, state court administrator.
The state prison system earlier identified more than 900 inmates convicted of sex offenses with no records of evaluations, according to Patti Micciche, spokeswoman for the Colorado Department of Corrections. She said those evaluations are being conducted, with prisoners slated for soonest release being evaluated first.
Colorado Attorney General John Suthers gave the court system's list of 337 sex offenders Friday to the state's district attorneys, instructing them to file motions asking judges to order evaluations for everyone on the list.
All the sex offenders who are to be evaluated are either in prison or on intensively supervised probation.
They also are listed on sex-offender registries maintained by local law enforcement agencies, which people can view to find out where the sex offenders are.
"It's not like there was this huge pool of sexually violent predators that snuck through entirely," Suthers said.
Some of the convicted sex offenders on probation who will be evaluated include:
• Sean King, convicted of sexually assaulting three Broomfield girls in the 1990s. At his home, authorities found homemade child-pornography pictures, student directories for an elementary school and a middle school, and a handwritten list titled "S.K.'s Little Girl Black Book" containing girls' names, addresses, telephone numbers and their grade in elementary school.
• James Cook, a former high school principal in the St. Vrain Valley School District, arrested in 2000 for persuading a 17-year- old male student to perform sex acts on him after showing the student videotapes of homosexual pornography.
• James Goodin, arrested in 2001 for molesting a 7-year-old boy and a 3-year-old girl and videotaping a 16-year-old youth performing sex acts with the intent of publishing the tapes on the Internet.
• James McElroy, a former residence hall adviser at Colorado State University, who pleaded guilty in 2000 to sexually assaulting female students in his dorm room.
• Dominick Gonzales, a former Huerfano County jailer who pleaded guilty to assaulting female inmates.
Suthers, who chairs a special task force studying how the evaluations were overlooked and how to ensure they occur from now on, blamed hastily drafted state legislation - a common problem, he said, when the federal government, as it did in this case, requires states to enact programs in order to receive certain federal funds.
"The legislation gets through rather quickly, before all the I's are dotted and T's are crossed," Suthers said. "This happened out of confusion," he said.
"There was some confusion of responsibility."
Some state prison officials misunderstood the 2001 law to mean that probation officers, who work for the courts, would evaluate sex offenders before they were sentenced. Some state court officials, likewise, misunderstood the law to mean that prison officials would evaluate the sex offenders before they were released from prison.
Marroney said some probation officers did not refer sex offenders for evaluations because they determined that one or more criteria for such an evaluation was missing and concluded no evaluation was needed.
Suthers said the legislature will consider new measures recommended by the task force to make the law clearer in its next session, beginning Jan. 1, 2006.
One task force recommendation: The responsibility for the evaluations will lie with probation officers and the court system.
The evaluations are required for anyone convicted of certain sex offenses.
Authorities then look at whether the offender was a stranger to the victim or cultivated a relationship with the victim for the purpose of sexually assaulting them. If those criteria are met, the evaluation proceeds to an interview by a therapist. Micciche said it takes about two hours and covers characteristics that researchers have found can predict whether someone is likely to commit another sex crime.
One question is whether the offender failed first or second grade.
"Some of these sex offenders began some behaviors early on, at a time when we would expect some normal socializations to be occurring, at about ages 7 to 9," said Chris Rowe, adult program coordinator for the state court system's division of probation services.
She emphasized, however, that failing a primary grade is only one of the topics covered, and that such a school failure by itself cannot predict future sex offenses.
Marroney, who also serves on the task force, said he is determined to make sure all required sex offender evaluations are done.
"This is personally important to me," he said. "We'll be investigating these things further to make sure that the community is properly protected."
He said state court officials found evaluations for 190 convicted sex offenders.
They weren't found to be sexually violent predators.
Suthers predicted that few of the 337 sex offenders on probation will be found to be sexually violent offenders because the most serious criminals likely are in prison.
Marroney agreed: "Just because an individual is named on this list does not indicate that he or she would be found to be a sexually violent predator by the court."
If someone is classified as a sexually violent predator, information about them and their photographs are posted on a state Web site operated by the Colorado Bureau of Investigation at http://sor.state.co.us/. In addition, law enforcement authorities can call neighborhood meetings to notify people living near them.
The task force wants the legislature to make such neighborhood notifications mandatory for all sexually violent predators.
"Some of these sex offenders began some behaviors early on, at a time when we would expect some normal socializations to be occurring, at about ages 7 to 9," said Chris Rowe, adult program coordinator for the state court system's division of probation services.
This causes a failure of the grade? Wouldn't this rather be reflected in "deportment" scores? ("Bill Bozo is naughty, he poked a pencil in the classroom's guinea pig's [deleted]")
Ping.
Moral Absolutes Ping.
One easy at least partial solution - all rapists and child molesters should face execution. It's the right thing to do. Rape and child molestation used to be capital crimes; this should be the standard. Liberal psychological crapola has determined that rapists and child molesters need understanding. Well, we need to understand that they have forfeited their right to share the planet with the rest of us.
(I mean forcible rape of adults, not "date rape" where she lets him in the apartment, lets him remove her clothes, lets him do this and that, and halfway through says "no" and then he is now a rapist. But regarding children, any sexual activity whatsoever.)
Freepmail me if you want on/off this pinglist.
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