CO: Unintended effect of 1998 law: More sex offenders in for life

In Colorado prisons, the number of men and women serving life sentences for sex offenses today is 41 times greater than that of just 14 years ago.

On the roster of lifers, sex offenders now outnumber everyone else — killers, kidnappers, armed robbers, arsonists, habitual offenders, adults who fatally abuse children. Sixty-three percent of all Colorado prisoners sentenced to life are sex offenders, a figure that is more than four times the national average.

This wasn’t supposed to happen. The sponsor of a 1998 law providing lifetime supervision of sex offenders assured her colleagues that its passage would not change prison time. Those assurances proved untrue. Sex offenders sentenced to new indeterminate sentences — two years to life, for example — discovered their sentences looked more like life than two years. Full Article

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Plain old ignorance/stupidity by the author and by the state it’s self. People forced/coerced to be on registries have one; if not the lowest documented rates of recidivism. I feel for the people (the inmates; the state deserves the $$$,$$$,$$$ mess they created) in CO that have to participate in this chaotic mess. This really sounds like it was sold and bought by people that didn’t have the right facts. Just ANOTHER panic law. Humph; wonder where those folks went to school. Incurable? Human sexuality comes in all flavors and is not a disease. Those fools only thought they knew what they were doing.

What a nightmare for so many people on so many levels, especially those stuck in prison.