Topeka ? A residential treatment facility for paroled inmates is too close to Highland Park High School, a group of residents concerned about the proximity of sex offenders to students told state officials.

“It’s like dangling meat in front of the wolves,” said Robin Block, who identified herself as a member of the National Association to Protect Children.

Comments by Block and other residents came after a public forum Thursday night by the Department of Corrections about parole guidelines and security precautions for parolees.

The meeting showed concerns over the nearness of Mirror Inc. to Highland Park High School. The treatment center is directly south of school grounds.

The Kansas Bureau of Investigation lists six registered sex offenders whose address is the facility’s. Not all facility residents are sex offenders. The KBI lists some 200 registered sex offenders in Topeka.

Keven Pellant, a deputy corrections secretary, said the recidivism rate for sexual offenders is 2.5 percent in Kansas, compared with 5.3 percent nationwide.

But that didn’t soothe Block’s concerns.

“We don’t want to take that 2.5 percent chance,” she said. “We want them managed. We just don’t want them managed next door.”

Kenneth Perkins, facility coordinator at Mirror Inc., said it has operated since 1990 without a security problem.

Monica Brede said she believed the facility wouldn’t be allowed to operate near a school in a more wealthy part of the city.

House Speaker Doug Mays, R-Topeka, has said the situation was a reason he will be pushing a bill in the Legislature next year to crack down on sexual predators, including requiring them to live no closer than 2,500 feet from any school or day care center.

The forum also drew comments from Shawnee County Dist. Atty. Robert Hecht, who questioned panel members about treatment for sexual offenders in state prisons.

Hecht said inmates had told him they received only an hour of treatment per month, but officials said offenders receive four hours of treatment a day, five days a week.