DENVER -- Dozens of sex offenders could soon be released from Colorado prisons.

How would you know if a convicted sex offender was living in your neighborhood?

Right now, finding out if a Colorado sex offender lives next door is a bit more complicated than you might think.

If you want a list of sex offenders, you must go to your local police department and request it in person.

You can only receive the list for the city in which you live, and the list could cost you as much as $5.

The lists, in some cases, can contain hundreds of names. 7NEWS checked and found that Denver has over 1,100 registered sex offenders, and there are 385 in Aurora, 113 in Lakewood and 61 in Boulder.

A statewide computer database on the Internet would make things much easier, but as of right now, no such site exists.

The Colorado Bureau of Investigation does have the entire sex offender database, but it is not required to put it on its Internet site -- so it doesn't.

This puts Colorado well behind most other states.

For example, if you want to see if there is a sex offender in your neighborhood in Texas, you simply enter the zip code on the sex offender database. You not only get a name and a description of the crime, but also a picture of the offender.

New laws passed this spring require sex offenders to register every quarter rather than annually, and failure to do so is now a felony.