In December, The Monitor received a confidential note from a Boulder community member who shared concerns about a Boulder resident who was listed as a sexually violent predator on the Montana Sexual or Violent Offender Registry (SVOR), a publicly accessible database maintained by the state Department of Justice that contains addresses, biographic and offense specific information about sexual and violent offenders.
In January, community members expressed concern over the same individual online, in a since-deleted public post on the “Everything Boulder” Facebook page, an open community board. The Facebook post sparked a conversation about the degree to which sexual and violent offenders living in Jefferson County should be scrutinized by their neighbors, and how to, and to whom, local residents should voice concerns about the behavior of any particular registered offender.
The exchange surfaced a stark tension. On the one hand, people have the right to be concerned about sexual offenders living in their midst. Sexual assault is very real: Montana recorded 157 such crimes per 100,000 residents in 2024, the third-highest rate in the U.S., according to a study of FBI Crime Data Explorer trends commissioned by The Fitch Law Firm. And the Sexual and Violent Offender Registry currently lists 3,164 sexual or sexual and violent offenders across the state. 39 of those live in Jefferson County.
