Boulder will seek to solve housing options for, improve communication about sexually violent predators

April 10-- Apr. 10--Boulder will seek to provide incentives to the private sector to house sexually violent predators, who are generally restricted by the state to living in the county in which they are convicted, and to improve the way the community is notified about such people living here.

Boulder City Council in a study session Tuesday supported eight consensus recommendations from the Sexually Violent Predators Working Group to reduce recidivism and improve communication. The working group was organized early last year in response to community outcry over Christopher Lawyer, a sexually violent predator who lived at the Boulder Shelter for the Homeless off and on during the latter half of 2017.

Lawyer was deemed a sexually violent predator, a designation given to a person after a psychosexual evaluation, after he pleaded guilty in 2001 to first-degree sexual assault, second-degree assault and misdemeanor menacing in connection with the rape of a newspaper carrier. He originally was sentenced to 12 years to life in prison, and was paroled in 2016.

The day before the rape, Lawyer reportedly forced his way into a University Hill home and attempted to rape a different woman. That woman was injured but managed to escape. The working group noted he was an outlier because he offended against strangers and had a previous history of sex crimes, both of which are unusual.

He accrued parole violations in Colorado and California, where he moved after spending most of 2017 bouncing around Boulder County amid resident opposition to his presence.

"A lot of the community was very concerned, particularly when he ended up living at the homeless shelter," city attorney Tom Carr told council Tuesday. "That created a community conversation about how we deal with sexually violent predators, particularly since we seem to be seeing more of them."

There are 116 registered sex offenders in Boulder, three of whom are deemed sexually violent predators. Of those three, two list the Boulder Shelter for the Homeless as their registered address.

The Colorado Department of Corrections requires most sexually violent predators to return to the county in which they were convicted, and they must apply to and receive permission from another state to which they seek to move, the working group noted in a memo to council.

Many sexually violent predators end up homeless because they struggle finding housing or jobs, Carr said, and those factors might contribute to their likelihood of reoffending. Beyond that, he said, police would prefer to know where they live rather than not.

"One of the biggest challenges is housing," Carr said. "People tend to be less likely to offend if they are part of a community and have a support system."

The working group did not recommend residency restrictions, the original charge they were asked to study, because evidence does not support that such restrictions make the community safer.

Residency restrictions prohibit sexually violent predators or other sex offenders from living within certain distances of such places as schools, playgrounds and pools. Such restrictions have been made illegal in some states, and data does not support that they are successful, according to the memo.

"This whole discussion was about residential restrictions," Carr said. "The group is not recommending that in any way. All the data we saw was that those don't really work, and can make things worse."

The group's recommendations were that the city:

Seek public-private partnerships to incentivize the private sector to provide housing;

Identify a city staff member to search for housing partnerships and similar solutions;

List information and a fact sheet about sexually violent predators on its website;

Include information about sexually violent predators in materials provided to new council members;

Improve notification meetings and identify best practice;

Expand outreach efforts around notification meetings;

Provide council with information about notification meetings; and,

Structure notification meetings to provide information, allow people to ask questions, and allow people to express their opinions in a thoughtful and structured manner.

Typically, notification meetings are sparsely attended, but more than 100 people attended notification meeting regarding Lawyer in May 2017, and they were angry and bothered by the meeting's format, Carr said.

"The challenge is that there isn't a whole lot that you can do about it," Carr said. "The communities tend to get frustrated when you tell them, 'We're putting somebody in your community who we believe is dangerous, but there's really not much you can do. That's a challenge."

Some members of the working group -- though not a consensus -- recommended creating a task force with members from the city and county and other local and state authorities to form a program to provide housing, support services, counseling, supervision, employment, work programs, funding and other incentives to sexually violent predators who chose to participate and agree to certain stipulations.

That recommendation did not receive council support Tuesday.

"I personally say we move right on forward with the consensus recommendations," Councilman Aaron Brockett said. Of the non-consensus recommendation, he said, "I really appreciate the community member's work on that, but it involves a level of resources that I think is not where those resources should be focused."

Councilwoman Cindy Carlisle lamented the fact that such services would fall to communities to fund.

"The funding should be there, and it should be there from the feds or from the state to help," Carlisle said. "More and more of this comes back onto the communities, who are the least able to deal with it."

Some council members, including Bob Yates, cautioned that they wanted to limit spending on the recommendations they did accept.

"I just don't want us to be surprised and have spent a lot of money on this without knowing about it in advance," Yates said.

"That was not my intent," Carr replied.

Cassa Niedringhaus: 303-473-1106, cniedringhaus@dailycamera.com

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