Proposed measure would reduce buffers from schools, daycare centers from 2,000 feet to 1,000 feet
Englewood city leaders on Monday readied a major overhaul to a decade-old law that severely restricts where sex offenders can live in this city of 32,000 south of Denver.
Englewood’s law, enacted in 2006, prohibits sex offenders from taking up residence within 2,000 feet of a school, a day care center and other locations where children congregate, such as public pools. But that buffer, considered one of the toughest in the state, has had the effect of placing nearly the entire city off limits to those convicted of a sex crime and invited lawsuits and other challenges to what some say is an overly broad prohibition.
The City Council on Monday considered reducing that distance requirement to 1,000 feet, opening up some new parts of the city where registered sex offenders would be able to live. Specifically, the measure would increase the portion of the city open to sex offenders from 1.3 percent of Englewood properties to 21 percent.
The measure was pushed forward on a 5-1, vote and public comment will be heard on the issue at the next meeting, Feb. 21.
“This is a great compromise,” said Councilman Rick Gillit, who concedes that Englewood may have set the buffer too wide 11 years ago but still needs controls over how close a sex offender might be living to families, especially those with young children.
But others are less certain that Englewood’s move will do anything to address the larger question of what to do with those who have served their time for the crime and now need a place where they can reconnect with family members and support systems and reintegrate into society. Alison Ruttenberg, a Boulder lawyer who represents three sex offenders who sued Englewood last year after claiming the city planned to push them out, said drumming offenders out of neighborhoods doesn’t increase safety for the people living there.
Even if sex offenders aren’t living in a city, Ruttenberg said, they may still work there or pass through unaffected by any restrictions.
“You’re not keeping them out of your community; you’re just keeping them from living in your community,” she said.
She said the recidivism rate for sex offenders who successfully go through treatment is less than 1 percent and the recidivism rate for perpetrators of other felonies is far higher. Singling out sex offenders over other criminals is wrong, she said, and her legal challenge to the law remains in effect.
“People shouldn’t be afraid of sex offenders — they should be afraid of drunk drivers and burglars,” Ruttenberg said.
Mark Silverstein, legal director of the ACLU of Colorado, said Monday that Englewood’s sex offender residency restriction “is a fear-based ordinance” fueled by the stigma often associated with sex crimes. The ACLU also sued Englewood over the ordinance, prompting the city to stop enforcement of the law for a while.
“These ordinances are justified as protection for children, but they don’t do anything to protect children because they don’t stop people from hanging out near where children are,” Silverstein said.
Instead they push former inmates deeper “underground” and away from family members or social structures that might stabilize their lives, he said. Silverstein and Ruttenberg said Englewood, and the half dozen other communities in Colorado that have residency restrictions on the books, should drop them. Other communities with buffers in place include Greenwood Village, Dacono and Greeley, said Meghann Dollar, a legislative and policy advocate for the Colorado Municipal League.
Dollar said the restrictions are defensible under a city’s land-use powers and that “these decisions are a matter of local concern.”
“We support a municipality’s ability to enforce its land-use authority,” she said.
But councilwoman Laurett Barrentine said she would not be supporting the new 1,000-foot buffer because it remains “arbitrary” and cannot “be substantiated that it makes the community safe.”
“Providing a false sense of security is dangerous,” she said. ..Source.. by John Aguilar
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