A spate of neighboring municipalities followed suit, many of them adding a line to their code similar to this one in Aurora: "A family shall not include more than one person required to register as a sex offender." Jefferson County also amended its code, but might have more trouble implementing it because--unlike cities--counties in Colorado are required to find placements for juvenile sex offenders. The county is currently struggling to find a location for a new facility to house youth offenders.
The Colorado ACLU successfully challenged the amended definition of family in Northglenn, which would have forced a foster family to move or split up. Mark Silverstein, the organization's legal director, notes that under the law declared unconstitutional in March, "There was nowhere in this city that this family could live; they were effectively banished."
Social services professionals and the offenders themselves assert that it is often healthier for sex offenders to live in group homes because of the support they can offer each other. "The goal should be to reduce the risk that sex offenders will repeat crimes," Silverstein says. "These city ordinances are actually decreasing stability and increasing recidivism as they hound sex offenders from home to home and neighborhood to neighborhood and community to community."
