Offender Definitions

Community Notification Laws

Laws that allow or mandate law enforcement, criminal justice or corrections agencies to actively notify citizens of certain convicted sex offenders living in their communities. These laws are distinct from sex offender registration laws.

Community Notification Technical Assistance Team

A group of professionals assembled by the Sex Offender Management Board (SOMB) and the Division of Criminal Justice to assist local law enforcement in carrying out community notification and to provide general community education concerning sex offenders. The team represents experience and expertise in the management, treatment and supervision of sex offenders and in law enforcement.

Conviction

Found guilty, pleaded guilty (including Alford pleas) or nolo contendere, or received disposition as juvenile or adjudicated a juvenile delinquent. (Offenders receiving deferred judgments are subject to sex offender registration but cannot be found to be sexually violent predators or be subject to community notification.)

Federal Sex Offender Laws

Require states to comply with the sex offender registration and notification process. These include:

  • The Jacob Wetterling Crimes Against Children and Sexually Violent Offender Registration Act (1994), which requires states to establish sex offender registration for convicted offenders, and a system to track them.
  • Megan's Law (1996), which requires states to inform community residents about the presence of convicted sex offenders in their neighborhoods.
  • The Pam Lychner Act (1997), which mandating lifetime registration for some sex offenders and a National Sex Offender Registry.
  • Protect Act (2003), which created Amber Alert program and requires all states to create Internet sex offender registries and to include child pornography offenders in registries.

Sex Offender

Sections 16-22-102(9) and 18-1.3-1008, C.R.S. define a sex offender as a person convicted of one of the following sex offenses:

  • Sexual assault in the first, second or third degree
  • Unlawful sexual contact
  • Sexual assault on a child
  • Sexual assault on a child by one in a position of trust
  • Sexual assault on a client by a psychotherapist
  • Enticement of a child
  • Incest
  • Aggravated incest
  • Trafficking in children
  • Sexual exploitation of children
  • Procurement of a child for sexual exploitation
  • Indecent exposure
  • Soliciting for child prostitution
  • Pandering of a child
  • Procurement of a child for prostitution
  • Keeping a place of child prostitution
  • Pimping of a child; Inducement of child prostitution
  • Patronizing a prostituted child
  • Engaging in sexual conduct in a penal institution
  • Wholesale promotion of obscenity to minors and promotion of obscenity to minors criminal attempt
  • Conspiracy or solicitation to commit any of the offenses

Sexually Violent Predator (SVP)

1) Per 18-3-414.5 C.R.S, a "Sexually violent predator" is an offender:

(I) Who is eighteen years of age or older as of the date the offense is committed or who is less than eighteen years of age as of the date the offense is committed but is tried as an adult

(II) Who has been convicted on or after July 1, 1999, of one of the following offenses committed on or after July 1, 1997:

(A) Sexual assault in the first, second, or third degree (felony)

(B) Unlawful sexual contact

(D) Sexual assault on a child

(E) Sexual assault on a child by one in a position of trust

(III) Whose victim was a stranger to the offender or a person with whom the offender established or promoted a relationship primarily for the purpose of sexual victimization

(IV) Who, based upon the results of a risk assessment screening instrument developed by the division of criminal justice in consultation with and approved by the sex offender management board, is likely to subsequently commit one or more of the offenses specified in subparagraph (II) under the circumstances described in subparagraph (III)

Based on the results of such assessment, the court or parole board shall make specific findings of fact and enter an order concerning whether the defendant is a sexually violent predator.

Local Community Notification Teams

Teams convened and led by local law enforcement agencies and utilized when conducting community notification. Teams are comprised of:

  • Child Abuse and Sex Crimes Investigators
  • Prosecutors
  • Sex Offender Treatment Providers
  • Supervising Probation or Parole Officers
  • Victim Advocates or Service Providers

Team members are utilized at different times depending on the requirements of a particular community notification meeting.

Sex Offender Management Board

Sex Offender Management Board (SOMB) The Colorado Sex Offender Management Board (SOMB) is a multi-disciplinary Board created in 1992 by the Colorado legislature to develop Standards and Guidelines for the Assessment, Evaluation, Treatment and Behavioral Monitoring of Adult Sex Offenders. SOMB has also developed lifetime supervision criteria, standards for developmentally disabled sex offenders, and standards and guidelines for the evaluation, assessment, treatment and supervision of juveniles who have committed sexual offenses. 

SOMB Standards are designed to establish a basis for the systematic management and treatment of sex offenders which is intended to improve community safety and protect victims. SOMB is committed to research-based policy development, identifying best practices in sex offender management, as well as utilizing a victim and public safety approach in the development of sex offender management policies.

Vigilantism

For the purposes of this document, it is the unlawful attacking or harassment of an identified sex offender, his/her significant others, his/her property, or any member of his/her community supervision team.