Editorial: Colorado's work not done on sex-crime laws

4-5-2010 Colorado:

An East Coast appeals court decision last week points out unfinished business for Colorado state lawmakers in regards to sex offenders.

The three-judge panel ruled that a Maryland man convicted of trying to lure a cop posing as a 13-year-old girl into a sexual encounter should not have been forbidden from using a computer for 30 yeas after his release from prison.

The man, Mark Wayne Russell of Columbia, Md., had been convicted after a 2006 sex sting and was accused of trying to entice someone he found on the Internet whom he believed was a 13-year-old girl.

The sheer number of suspects these stings turn up is chilling. So, too, are the seemingly never-ending stories, even locally, of children who are abused or might have been had the “victims” not turned out to be police in reality.

It’s that frightening reality that led to long and harsh sentences being meted out to those who are now referred to as “sex offenders.” Town meetings are now regularly held in Aurora when these offenders moved back into local neighborhoods. Their addresses and rap sheets are easily discoverable on the World Wide Web.

Much of these changes are good, in that they really can serve to protect the public from sadistic criminals who are unable to keep from seeking out new victims.

The problem is that lawmakers, in their zeal to protect society from these offenders, are creating other problems.

Current law paints sex crimes with a brush too broad, grouping 17-year-old boys who have sexual encounters with their 15-year-old girlfriends in the same flock as pedophiles who repeatedly lure little girls on playgrounds into the back of vans for the sole purpose of a heinous rape. While cases where it’s blurry just where a real crime occurred are relatively rare, it’s clear that not all sex crimes are alike, and the courts need more flexibility in sentencing.

Criminal psychiatrists agree that not all sex offenders are incorrigible predators. But by branding these convicts for the rest of their lives, we make it almost impossible for them to find work and some semblance of life after prison, driving them to new lives of new crimes and back on the taxpayers’ dime.

As the Maryland appeals court pointed out, telling someone they can never use a computer for 30 years is more restricting than telling them they can’t use a phone or a car. They’ve become ubiquitous in modern life. You can’t even get a job at a McDonald’s without using a computer.

The government should ensure that those who are convicted of predatory sex crimes are closely watched after being released from prison or as part of their probation, but the government can’t make it so that these people are unable to rejoin society in some normal fashion without guaranteeing more and new crime victims in the future. ..Source.. THE VOICE OF AURORA, The Aurora Sentinel