Sex Offender Treatment wait list effects judges sentencing decisions

5-12-2010 Colorado:

The Mesa County District Attorney says sex offenders are getting off easy. In 2008, only 40% of convicted sex offenders were sent to prison.

GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. (KKCO) - The Mesa County District Attorney says sex offenders are getting off easy. In 2008, only 40% of convicted sex offenders were sent to prison.

The District Attorney says there's a glitch in the corrections system. A waiting list of years for the Sex Offender Treatment and Monitoring Program. That's the program that sex offenders must complete to be considered for parole. The large waiting list is persuading judges to think twice about sending sex offenders to prison.

Monday, in the Jonathan Roy case, he was sentenced to five years at community corrections for having sex with a 13 year old girl and disobeying a court order. Mesa County Judge Deister wanted to send him to prison, but decided against it. All because if Roy would have gone to prison he would have had to complete the sex offender treatment program before he could get out.

And with a backlog of years, Judge Deister said Roy could've been waiting behind bars to take the course for the rest of his life.

"In the best of all possible worlds he would do five, six, seven years in prison as a punishment for his bad conduct, but that's what Judge Deister was concerned about.

If I send him to prison he may never get out because of this log jam at the counseling program," says Hautzinger, District Attorney.

Hautzinger says it's a result of numbers, primarily the state's budget crisis because one of the first things to get chopped in prison is treatment programs.

According to the Department of Corrections in the span of ten years, only fifty-six inmates have made it through the sex treatment program. ..Source.. by Ashley Prchal