Don't banish offenders

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04/22/2007 Aurora flirts with misguided policy

Aurora may join Greenwood Village and become the second Colorado city that prohibits certain registered sex offenders from living near places children frequent.

In Aurora's case, the ordinance would target violent offenders and those who have attacked children. The forbidden zone would be anywhere within the city limits that's 1,000 feet or closer to a school or recreation center.

The Lyons town board wisely rejected a similar measure not long ago. We hope the Aurora ordinance, which is scheduled to be heard by the city's public safety committee Tuesday, suffers a similar fate.

Any attempt to banish former sex offenders from large portions of a city or town is counterproductive and would probably drive them underground, where they'll be even more of a threat. Such measures are also quite possibly unconstitutional.

The public is concerned that the corrections system is releasing potentially violent predators into the community with scant supervision. The reality is more complicated. Colorado has supervision guidelines in place to monitor sex offenders who have completed their sentences and are on parole. These regulations go far beyond the requirement to register with local law enforcement every time they move.

In fact, most felony sex offenders who have been sentenced since 1998 face some form of lifetime monitoring. Before an incarcerated offender who faces lifetime supervision is approved for parole, the inmate is expected to attend counseling and demonstrate improvement, make arrangements to find housing and a job, and agree to continue treatment after leaving jail. If they can regain something that resembles a normal life in their community, they'll be less likely to harm others again.

Measures that try to banish sex offenders can put them beyond the reach of family members, community and religious organizations and other support systems - as well as jobs and decent housing.

When Miami Beach established a 2,500-foot buffer zone in 2005, the only place that state corrections officials would allow sex offenders to live within the city limits was under a bridge that's beside the Intracoastal Waterway.

Last October, a federal judge suspended an ordinance in Indianapolis which prohibited sex offenders who committed crimes against children from coming within 1,000 feet of schools and playgrounds. To be sure, that's stricter than the proposed Aurora ordinance, which would regulate only where sex offenders live, not where they work . . . or walk. Still, the basic principle is the same.

The legislature has turned back attempts each of the past three years to impose a buffer zone statewide. We urge council members in Aurora, and elected local officials elsewhere, to show similar restraint.