DENVER — It’s not often you see prosecutors and public defenders working together on the same team.
But Thursday night, representatives from both groups spoke before state lawmakers in a joint effort to reform the law around Colorado’s juvenile sex offender registry list.
“There are demonstrable…effects for children listed on this public registry right now,” said Amanda Gall, a Sexual Assault Resource Prosecutor at the Colorado District Attorney’s Council.
“This bill strikes a balance between public access and privacy for these children.”
HB-1079 was passed out of the House Judicial Committee Thursday. It calls for several changes, including:
- Limiting public access to the juvenile sex offender registry
- Limiting lifetime registration for sexual offenses committed when the offender was a juvenile
- Giving judges more discretion at the time of sentencing a juvenile to decide whether or not to exempt the offender from the registry, based on an evaluation of the offender and recommendation from the evaluation team
- If the juvenile offender moves to Colorado from another state, and the juvenile offender is no longer required to register in that prior state, he or she would not have to register in Colorado
Its sickening how they can think logical when it comes to children’s lives being ruined, but cant do the same for adults who are under the same system. Its actually worse for adults since the minors dont have to work or put a roof over their heads.
The world would be a better place if this was treated the same for adults.
I guess the psychology is “minors are just people who did a bad thing who can be redeemed and adults are monsters who did monstrous things that cannot ever be redeemed”.
It fits the 80% recidivism rate false information being pushed by treatment employer for sex offenders to ensure job security.
@ New person) You hit it out of the ball park!! Kids only know Right and Wrong if they have a good parent or role model. But with anything in life! People do make mistakes. That is how we learn to Not make the same mistake. But too be placed on a list for life is out right Punishment!! Ask the Jews! Who got marked with tattoos and put to death! The list is the same as marking people! It has to go!!! It does no good for anyone. But to shame and place family’s in harm’s way that is… Read more »
So this is one big admission (on public record) that the registry is indeed punishment
Change juvenile to everyone and they finally got it right. I can only hope this is the first step that maybe law makers see how unconstitutional this is and are just to scared to change it, and are using this change as a test to see how it is accepted by the public