Speaking objectively: is there, in point of fact, a good way to answer this question?
You better practice saying "Governor Beauprez"folks. -Hickenlooper says what?!?!? http://t.co/wDmWU27HjG
— Aaron Gardner (@Aaron_RS) October 25, 2014
I mean, I understand that not all sex offenders are, say, pedophiles. But I’m personally trying to think of a class of sex offender that I’d want around my kids anyway, and I’m kind of drawing a blank. As did, apparently, Governor Hickenlooper of Colorado. Alas for him, he signed off on a policy of letting sex offenders work with kids without violating the sex offender’s parole and I didn’t, so his inability to justify that is a problem.
Moe Lane
PS: I happen to think, by the way, that there are serious problems with making two minors sex offenders. Apparently, so does John Hickenlooper… but, again, I’m a guy on the Internet and he’s the governor of Colorado. Why hasn’t he done something about the situation?
Just for accuracy. I am a retired Peace Officer in Colorado. I can say with some certitude that the exception that Hickenlooper is trying to claim of two teenagers is an absolute rarity. DA’s will not charge that, unless there is evidence of coercion. In Colorado statutes the age of consent for females is 16, assuming that the male is not over 18. If the female is 15, you are in pedophile [or technically Ephebophile] territory. If the female is 16 or over, consenting, and the male is under 20, DA’s just will not bother.
Sex offenders are not all pedophiles. But they are all likely to attack the victim-prone. Children cannot defend themselves.
Keep in mind that Hickenlooper’s primary Corrections initiative has been to over-ride the requirements and standards used to qualify convicted felons for parole, and put them on the streets as soon as possible. He changed the earned time system [what most states call “good behavior time”] so that no matter what an inmate does, they get the time off their sentence, effectively cutting all sentences in half. And it is common for the worst of the worst inmates who have committed acts requiring AD SEG MAX [23 hour a day lockdown] to be sent directly to the streets on parole when they do not meet the requirements to be paroled. I personally know people in that system who have retired rather than sign off on some of those releases.
Hickenlooper’s first Director of the Department of Corrections, Thomas Clements, was murdered in his home by an inmate released like that. They tried to blame the release on a clerical error, but it was a direct result of the policy dictated by the governor. It may or may not have been relevant that the inmate, Evan Ebel, was the son of Jack Ebel, who was one of his major campaign donors and who Hickenlooper described as “an old friend”.
Public safety is not even on Hickenlooper’s priority list.
Man, that was…inarticulate.
Per S Bahadur, there’s a bunch of gray-area around the age of consent and, absent some other considerations, it’s hard to argue that a 19-year-old male should be branded for life if his 16-year-old date giggles ‘what are you waiting for?’ in his ear when he tentatively reaches for her waistband.
Not that I’d expect a gubernatorial candidate, mindful of the votes of the parents of 16-year-old girls*, to put things in quite those terms.
But I’ve never heard anyone flub it quite so badly as Hickenflopper.
* – got a girl, not quite 16 yet, but the fear is building…
1: IIUC, if you pee outside, and someone sees your junk, that can make you a “flasher”, which can make you a sex offender. Not sure doing that once should mark you as a threat to all children.
2: An actual system of justice would have the concept of punishing people, and then letting them get on with their lives. They can’t get on with their lives, and are a permanent threat? Fine, kill them.
Our system is royally screwed up. But it doesn’t sound like Hick wants to make it any better.