Thread by @shayshinecastle

OK, council is getting some recommendations from the sexually violent predators working group. This group was convened bc of Christopher Lawyer, an SVP who was released, going to live in Jamestown and then Longmont. He was ultimately placed at the homeless shelter.

There are currently 4 SVPs living in Boulder.

The point of SVP regulation is that ppl should have a right to know when someone dangerous is being released into the community. "But there's not much you can do about it" as a community, Carr says.

SVPs have to register as sex offenders, sometimes for life, but their parole ends at some point, and so therefore they are not subject to supervision. That means (sometimes) that there are limits on what the city can do.

Sex offenders differ from SVPs in a few ways. SVPs are more likely to reoffend, based on an assessment of risk factors. Those are many things, but they include criteria such as degree of psychopathy and hostility toward women.

Boulder will *maybe* see more SVPs in the future, bc the program was implemented 18 yrs ago, but the average sentence is 35.5 years. So they will start being released in coming years.

Housing them is very difficult. Many become homeless.

Correction to earlier tweet: While staff notes said there were 4 SVPs in Boulder, Carr's presentation says 3.
116 registered sex offenders in the city.

2 of the 3 SVPs list the Boulder Shelter for the Homeless as their address.

Sex offenders are generally released to the county where they came from. They are often barred from going elsewhere.

Noteworthy is that Lawyer was unique among sex offenders, in that he committed a rape on a stranger. 93% of victims are assaulted by someone they know.

OK, after that super brief and not at all adequate "education" on the topic, here are the working group's 8 recommendations:

1. Encourage public/private partnerships to offer housing to SVPs
2. Have someone on city staff focus on SVP housing and “similar issues”
3. Put info on SVPs on the city website, with links and references
4. Incoming city council members should receive info on SVPs

OK, these next few are around meetings that the community has when the SVPs are released. The community is notified and meets with law enforcement, etc.

5. Keep evolving notification criteria
6. Expand outread (NextDoor, Facebook, Twitter, etc.) on notification meetings
7. City manager should tell council about notification meetings
....

8. Change presentations at notification meetings; follow a structure of presentation (with “empathy” and “specify that not all SVPs are the same”) answer questions and then “allow ppl to express their opinions in a thoughtful and structured manner"

There was a 9th recommendation that the group didn't agree upon, to institute a program for SVPs that included housing resources, social services, supervision, work programs, etc.

This is bc a strong network is the best thing to prevent a re-offense.

Likelihood of recidivism drops drastically after an SVP has been out of prison for five years. For every 5 yrs SVP is free, the risk of re-offense drops by 50%; less than 1% after 10 yrs

However, only 16-19% of sex offenses are reported, so this data does not capture all re-offenses

Ok I'm going back to notification practices for a min. Most of the time, no one shows up to those meetings. 2-3 ppl, Carr says. But when Lawyer was released, it was a full hearing. Very tense.

Since a lot of the meetings involve correcting myths about sex offenders, it didn't go over well at Lawyer's meeting, bc he really was an outlier and represented all of the worst (usually unfounded) fears about sex offenders.

I want to say at this point that I am a survivor (I've been very open about this) so I am definitely terrified of any sex offender. But as a survivor, I fully embrace FACTUAL information about sex crimes so we can recognize and be prepared for it and keep ppl safe.

Some of the feedback from the Lawyer notification meeting was that "the city’s efforts to educate the community were not useful bc the situation was so emotional.”

Ppl felt powerless, council's memo said, but "it is also important to note that other entities, such as the city and law enforcement, also felt powerless.”

OK, back to the suggested program for SVP. It's a really tough sell, bc housing is so hard for everyone here. Dedicating city funds to subsidize housing for them is a tough choice when so many other ppl need them.

However, some of the working group said that Boulder has a "moral responsibility" to house SVPs here, bc they often go to other communities in Boulder County. Mostly, Longmont, bc it's cheaper.

So we are essentially exporting our (potentially) dangerous criminals elsewhere.

"This is a hard conversation, not only bc the topic itself is very emotional and very scary... but bc there is a huge gap in knowledge." Heather Bergman, who facilitated the group.

That program would be offered voluntarily to SVPs in exchange for agreeing to certain things, like not going near schools, pools, parks, etc. (Fact check: Not all SVPs have attacked children)

It would also restrict where they can live, which was contentious bc those have not been proven to be effective at preventing re-offenses, and it's constitutionally iffy. Legal in Colorado for now, though.

Council is cool with the 8 recommendations, but doesn't want to pursue long-term programs for SVPs.

It's not where our resources should be going, Brockett says.
Carlisle adds that it should be funded to prevent additional offenses. "The funding should be there, and it should be from the feds or the state." Too much is getting put on communities.

With that, we are done. Actually on time for once, even though budget talk went over. That's a first.

@threadreaderapp, could you please unroll? Thank you.