A convicted sex offender publicly criticized Colorado's treatment system at a legislative hearing Tuesday, saying he cannot even go fishing because his privileges have been restricted.
Brian Turner spent seven years in prison for fondling a girl. He said he came out well-adjusted and optimistic and rated as a low risk to commit a new sexual offense.
But after nearly two years of treatment in the community, "I don't feel well-adjusted and optimistic at this point," he said.
Turner's testimony at a House and Senate Judicial Committee hearing came on the heels of an independent evaluator's report that Colorado has been wasting tax dollars by overtreating low-risk sex offenders.
The hearing, held to receive a yearly report from the Sex Offender Management Board, pitted advocates for victims of sex assaults against mothers of sex offenders.
The victims' advocates criticized the approach and the findings of the evaluator, Central Coast Clinical and Forensic Psychology Services, calling its focus groups unbalanced and its report biased.
Karmen Carter, executive director of the victim advocacy group Blue Bench, said she was enraged to find that the report's authors paid more attention to sex offenders than their victims.
"Everything you see done in that report," she said, presents "one side of this issue and not a fair side."
Sterling Harris, chief deputy director of the Colorado Organization for Victim Assistance, told the committee that "the focus groups were out of balance," paying too little attention to the harm sex offenders inflict. "The crime of sexual assault affects victims for the rest of their lives," she said.
Mothers of sex offenders praised the report and called Colorado's treatment system onerous. Jo Stack said her developmentally disabled son was mislabeled a sexually violent predator and returned to prison from parole because he failed to find a treatment provider before a deadline.
The sex offender treatment system "is subjective. It's not specific to a developmentally disabled person. It can be manipulated," she said.
The committee also heard from a foster mother who testified as Jane Doe and complained about the state's failure to track sex offenders who list themselves as homeless.
Turner, the sex offender who testified Tuesday, said as a parolee he was penalized for letting his mother come to his home to bake pies without permission.
After completing treatment in prison, "I've been made to start all over again," he said, at a cost of $500 a month. "I can't go visit my friends. I can't go fishing. I go to work, go to treatment sessions, go take (drug tests)." ..Source.. by David Olinger
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