House Speaker Andrew Romanoff said Monday he plans to investigate whether new legislation is needed to strengthen Colorado’s procedures for identifying violent sexual predators.
Romanoff, a Denver Democrat, said he will meet with police, district attorneys and with state corrections, probation and Justice Division officials this week to explore why Colorado has identified only two sexually violent predators living in its communities in six years.
“This is not like repeat burglary,” Romanoff said Monday. “A single incident can mar someone for life.”
The Denver Post reported Sunday that since the state passed a sexually violent predator law in 1999, only two men not in prison have been labeled as SVPs, even though more than 1,300 men and women met the initial criteria to be labeled predators. Another 28 men and women identified as predators are still in prison.
Other states, such as Arizona and Florida, which also have sexual predator laws, have identified thousands of predators.
In many cases, evaluations to determine whether a sex offender should be labeled as a violent predator were not performed in Colorado by either judges or the Department of Corrections, as is legally required. In addition, the criteria to label someone a predator is complicated and restrictive by design.
Romanoff said he wants to ask state officials why the law is not enforced. The problem may require legislation in January, he said.
“They need to just enforce the law we’ve got,” he said. “If there are loopholes now, we ought to close them swiftly.”
After being contacted by the Post, DOC officials researched their role in performing the SVP tests and discovered their legal obligation. DOC had not performed a sexually violent predator evaluation on an inmate nearing parole in nearly six years.
DOC officials have now identified eight sex offenders who meet the initial criteria for predator designation and are in the process of evaluating them, DOC spokeswoman Alison Morgan said.
In addition, the Adams County probation office will research whether repeatedly convicted sex offender Bret Scot Ibsen, 47, who is on lifetime probation, can be evaluated as a possible predator, said Mike Garcia, chief probation officer for Adams County.
A youth football coach, Ibsen molested 10 boys between the ages of 10 and 12 from 1989 to 2000 while plying them with gifts and trips to malls, bowling alleys and amusement parks.
Romanoff said he also is interested in exploring whether the law could be changed to allow Colorado to evaluate sex offenders convicted before the sexually violent predator law was passed in 1999. And he said he would also like to see how community notification is working.
“We ought to have a conversation about how the notification system is working,” he said. “The goal is to protect folks.”
Staff writer Kirk Mitchell can be reached at 303-820-1206 or kmitchell@denverpost.com.
