CO - Should we stop labeling people 'sex offenders?'

Original Article (Video available)

01/17/2015

By Melissa Blasius

KUSA - A state regulatory board debated Friday whether the label "sex offender" was too stigmatizing to people who committed sex crimes.

Colorado's Sex Offender Management Board regulates treatment, rehabilitation, and monitoring of sex offenders. Friday's board meeting included a vote whether to eliminate the word "sex offender" from the board's official policies. Suggestions for replacement words included "clients," "defendants" and "individuals."

Ultimately, the board chose to continuing using the term "sex offender," but member also agreed to use other terms interchangeably as they revised written regulations. The decision came after more than an hour of debate, including comments from relatives of sex offenders, victim advocates and a local prosecutor.

"People who have committed a sexual offense will have a much better chance of revising their lives and moving in a different direction if they don't have the stigma of sex offender hanging over their heads," said Susan Walker. She is the director of an advocacy group called Coalition for Sex Offense Restoration.

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CA - Do Residency Bans Drive Sex Offenders Underground?

Original Article

07/07/2014

By Steven Yoder

Early last year, Los Angeles set aside a sliver of land in its Harbor Gateway neighborhood for the city’s newest and smallest park: two jungle gyms on a fifth of an acre.

The project was more than just an effort to increase the city’s green space. City Council members made clear that one of the park’s principal reasons for existence was to force 33 people on the California sex offender registry who were living in a nearby apartment building to move out. State law bars those on its registry from living within 2,000 feet of a park or school.

“We came together, working with the police department, to problem-solve, to send a message that Harbor Gateway cannot be dumped upon with a high number of registered sex offenders,” councilman Joe Buscaino said (Video) at the park’s opening.
- Just imaging how much money would be wasted if all grandstanding politician were to put pocket parks all over the state just so they can "look tough" on ex-sex offenders?  That is all this is, grandstanding!

But the state ban itself already clusters registrants into a limited number of areas, according to a September 2011 report by the California Sex Offender Management Board, which was created by the state legislature to advise it on sex offender policies.

California hasn’t been alone in its tough approach to ensuring that formerly incarcerated sex offenders pose no danger after they are released. As part of a wave of new sex offender laws starting in the mid-1990s, about 30 states and thousands of cities and towns passed such residency restrictions—prompting in turn a pushback from civil liberties advocates, state legislators and registrants themselves who argued the restrictions were not only unduly harsh but counterproductive.

But a court decision in Colorado last year could mark a shift in momentum.

In the Colorado case, _____, a high school soccer coach convicted in 2001 for a consensual sexual relationship with a 17-year-old student, was sentenced to seven years’ probation and put on the state sex offender registry.

Eleven years later, in 2012, he and his wife bought a house in the city of Englewood. But the police department told him he couldn’t live there because of a city ordinance prohibiting sex offenders from living within 2,000 feet of schools, parks and playgrounds—a law that effectively made 99 percent of its homes and rentals off limits to offenders.

Englewood police also warned offenders that even in the open one percent, if they contacted a homeowner whose property wasn’t for rent or for sale, they could be charged with trespassing.

_____ sued, and last August a federal court concluded that the city’s ban went too far.

The judge ruled that it conflicted with the state’s existing system for managing and reintegrating sex offenders and could encourage other towns and cities to do the same, effectively barring offenders from the entire state. Englewood has appealed, but two of the state’s five other cities that have residence bans have softened their restrictions since the decision.

The other three are awaiting the outcome of the appeal, according to John Krieger of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Colorado, which represented Ryals.

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MO - Sex offender restrictions (User submitted)

The following was sent to us via the contact form and posted with the users permission.

Dear M, you may want to contact the local sheriff to help give you the information you need or to point you in the right direction. Also check out the following website.

By M:
I cannot find anywhere, what the actual laws and restrictions for a sex offender are. I am currently the fiance of a now convicted sex offender, he was sentenced this September 2013, and will be home from the DOC in January. But I want to be prepared to know what he is and is not allowed to do. Also, do all the restrictions apply to every sex offender? Thanks.

Registration restrictions (User submitted)

The following was sent to us via the contact form and posted with their permission.

By K:
I posted this question as a comment to an article, but did not receive any feedback. I'm not looking for legal advice, just some feedback from anyone that may have some experience with this issue.

Let's say there is an individual that is convicted of a sex crime and required to register as a sex offender in the state he was convicted in. If that state has residency and movement restriction laws he obviously has to follow those while a resident of that state. But, what happens if he moves to another state? He's still required to register in the state of conviction (and the new state of residence), but is he now bound by those restrictions in his new state as well? FYI, the restrictions are not codified in the registration statute.

I've had input from 2 lawyers that have given conflicting advice...