"Colorado's system for identifying and warning communities about sexually violent predators - the worst rapists and child molesters - has identified almost none of them.
Since a state law went into effect in 1999, Colorado has labeled only two men not in prison as sexually violent predators, even though more than 1,300 sex offenders met the initial criteria to be labeled predators, according to an analysis by The Denver Post.
"That's it? Amazing," said former Colorado Rep. Steve Tool, who sponsored the bill that created the sexually violent predator designation for sex offenders considered most likely to re-offend. "I'm very surprised to hear that. After 5 1/2 years, there should be a higher number."
The Post has found flaws throughout the system, which originally was designed to warn people about the sexually violent predator living next door, or down the street, or next to a school.
The Colorado Department of Corrections - required by law to evaluate potential predators in prison before they hit the streets - had not done a single evaluation as of this month. But as a direct result of inquiries from The Post, the DOC is quickly beginning to perform those tests.
"We made a mistake. There's no denying we made a mistake," DOC spokeswoman Alison Morgan said. "The instrument [SEXUAL PREDATOR RISK ASSESSMENT SCREENING INSTRUMENT] was developed and never administered. We have many people working on it as aggressively as possible."
Community Watch's comments:
Hmm, The Department of Corrections in Colorado has a registered lobbyist which presents the interests of the DOC to members of Colorado's General Assembly, regarding on-going and proposed legislative action.
Who from Colorado's General Assembly presents laws to the DOC and audits whether they actually enforce them. Governor Bill Owens should call Colorado DOC Executive Director Joe Ortiz on the carpet for this miss.
Almost 6 years and not one of the sexual predator assessment forms were filled out...obviously protecting Colorado's children and community from sexual predators has not been a priority of DOC or the Governor.
Consider this proposal: send all sex offenders in Colorado back to prison (assuming the DOC can find them and that they actually served time for their crimes) until the forms are completed. Then, if another 6 years passes with none completed, the Governor should give Mr. Ortiz a very large raise.
