Most of you have heard that a sexually violent predator has moved to a halfway house in Fort Collins. I went to a public meeting about the man.
My stomach turned and my breath caught more than once that night.
I learned the offender had been in prison six years. He did his time, got out.
He now has two probation officers - both spoke at the meeting. Policemen stood at the back and sides of the room. Easily identifiable, blue shirted SAVA – Sexual Assault Victims Advocates – stood ready to talk with anyone who needed them. Human services representatives, case workers, district attorney’s office representatives – all assigned to this one man – sat and stood and explained and spoke.
My children attend school a stone’s throw from the new residence of this offender. So do hundreds of other children.
The meeting was, in a word, stunning.
I expected frustration, fear, and anger. I saw all three.
This man, as one of his parole officers said, has the same need for shelter and employment as other citizens.
He is under the expectation of voluntary compliance. His restrictions are many, varied, thorough and sweeping. He has a slew of people watching him, monitoring him, tracking his every move.The Colorado Sex Offender management Board assumes that sexual offenders can’t be cured, but that they can be managed. They also assume the safety of the community always comes before the rights of the offender.
These professionals are working their darndest to keep this community safe.
They are working their darndest to, with the help of strict and rigid boundaries, help this man live out the rest of his life in a more redeeming way.
He hurt children, was caught, sentenced, went to jail and got out. He lives here now and vigilantism is illegal. Part of our job as a community it to always be more decent than we expect ourselves to be.
Everyone present was unhappy and disturbed about what they heard, and what they have to absorb into their community.
Still, the hope was stunning.
The respect was stunning.
The decency was stunning.
The next day, as my sons and I drive home, I concentrate on the still defrosting streets worn to a slick at each stop sign. We slide more than once. I murmur that the storm leavings are getting old.
“So, Mama,” says Gabriel “if we saw a little boy my age on this road in a terrible storm, and he was waving his arms at the car, would we stop and help him?”
“Yes,” I say, definitively.
“What if he was my age?” adds Lucas who just turned 12 and still resides in the physical space of boyhood. “Yes, I said definitively – knowing I have a conversation ahead.
“What if the boy was 14 or 16 or 18?” one of them asks. I wonder what they heard at school. I flash on the many boys I’ve seen shape-shift from just-below-my-shoulder-tall into slightly hunched, lanky, big-shoed near-men. Their physical presence momentarily startles me,until I search – each time –for the boy I knew, and reassure myself that I do indeed recognize this person who is larger, bigger, stronger, than I am.
And then what doesn’t so much jump to my mind as settle in my body – deeply familiar, – and not so much rational as animal, is the reality of living among people: most of us are good, but not all of us are good. I must be careful; I must protect my children. I must teach my children to protect themselves.
The boys ask again. “If he looked like a grown-up, we’d probably call someone to come and help him,” I say. The answer makes me sad.
We head up our driveway. I know I will go in the house and speak to them, again, about safety and rules. I will remind them that the people protecting us are full of hope, full of help, and watchful.
I will remind them that most of us are good and safe. And, though it perhaps happens far too rarely, bad people can change sides – become good, or at least control their actions – with a lot of help from dedicated professionals.
We can always spare hope for each other.
It’s all we got, folks. Hope and decency.And it’s a lot.
