CO- Could a Phillip Garrido happen in Colorado?

Amazing, every single thing mentioned in this article, that Colorado would do to reveal conduct and acts like occurred with Phillip Garrido, was done in California by their officials (Parole and local police) and still the conduct slipped through. What makes Colorado DOC think it is superior to the same folks in California, whatever it is, is not mentioned in this article. Phillip Garrido is an anomaly, nothing like him before in history, and somewhere in the future there will be someone else, maybe not the same facts, but it will occur. Colorado, if your head is in the sand, a Garrido will definitely make you look bad.

UPDATE: Possibly some don't realize that, Garrido is still -up to the point of his arrest- under state and federal supervision. When he was paroled from his federal crime (kidnapping) he was put on LIFE SUPERVISION, and sent to Nevada to resolve their holds on him. When he got to Nevada they realized he was finished with his state punishment (rape) they then paroled him too. Garrido moved back to California and both Nevada and the Fed trasnferred supervion to California DOC. In 2006 when Jessica's law was enacted in California, thats when a GPS unit was attached to him (none before this time). So, at very least he will go back to prison for the rest of his life, either through Nevada or the Feds. The feds really have priority w/50 year sentence.

9-5-2009 Colorado:

Not likely, say corrections officials.

There are roughly 10,000 sex offenders in Colorado, watched by police detectives and parole officers and parents living down the street.

But how closely are they looking?

If an offender in Colorado kept a woman captive in his backyard for nearly two decades — as convicted rapist Phillip Garrido is accused of doing in California — would authorities know?

The officials most closely involved in sex-offender management in Colorado say yes, because of a comprehensive set of regulations that make Colorado among the most aggressive states in the nation for sex-offender supervision.

"Using the tools that we use, I feel pretty comfortable that if an offender was out there engaging in misbehavior, that we would be able to detect that behavior," said Chris Lobanov-Rostovsky, the manager of the sex-offender unit in the Colorado Division of Criminal Justice.

Colorado's management of the most dangerous offenders subscribes to a "containment model." Such a model — which was developed in part through the work of Colorado researchers — focuses on treatment of offenders, close supervision by authorities, coordination between counselors and officials, and lie-detector tests for offenders to keep them honest.

"The team approach really helps," said Jeff Geist, the Department of Corrections' representative on the state's sex-offender management board.

Offenders on parole or probation are subject to unannounced at-home visits by officers — as many as two a month for the most dangerous offenders — as well as additional face-to-face meetings. Parole officers have the authority to search every corner of an offender's home, Geist said, and a visit can last as long as an hour while officers hunt for evidence that an offender is even thinking of re-offending.

"We'll look to see if there's any evidence there have been kids there, or if there's something that doesn't belong," Geist said. "A children's toy in the backyard or a children's DVD, that would be a red flag we'd look at."

An offender also might be tracked by satellite. And at regular intervals — typically once every six months — the offender must take a polygraph test so that authorities can spot lies.

Such methods are gaining acceptance nationwide but are not yet universal. Polygraph exams, for instance, are still in their nascence in California, according to state reports there.

"Colorado has always been in the forefront nationally" with its sex-offender programs and supervision model, said Chris Rowe, who coordinates sex-offender programs for the state's Division of Probation Services.

That supervision model is labor-intensive. Department of Corrections guidelines say parole officers who specialize in sex-offender cases should have a caseload of only 26 parolees, less than half of a typical officer's caseload.

Geist acknowledges that sex-offender caseloads can't always be kept that low, though he said they don't climb drastically above the recommended levels.

The model also doesn't cover all of the state's sex offenders. There are roughly 3,000 offenders who are either on probation or parole and subject to the more rigorous supervision, according to state statistics. The remaining registered offenders in the community are monitored only by local law-enforcement agencies through the basic sex-offender registry.

In Arapahoe County, for instance, investigators make visits to offenders' homes to verify that they live there and to sniff out suspicious behavior. But those investigators can't search an offender's house without permission, said Sheriff Grayson Robinson.

He said public vigilance — aided by the county's online registry — helps too. "That's been a pretty effective tool."

Rowe, though, cautioned that public vigilance shouldn't be confined only to the names on a list.

"It's important for the community to know that it's not the person we're supervising who's the risk," Rowe said. "It's the person we're not supervising who's the risk." ..Source.. by John Ingold