Posted on 02/10/2021 1:08:58 PM PST by Kaslin
"It was my understanding that I was to do the treatment, then be released," says Mike Whipple, who recently participated in a 14-day hunger strike at the Minnesota Sex Offender Program's facility in Moose Lake. "Twelve years later, I'm still here, doing the same thing, over and over and over."
So far the civil commitment program has incarcerated Whipple three times longer than the prison sentence he served. The hunger strike, which involved a dozen of the program's 737 "clients," ended last week after state officials promised meetings where protesters could air their complaint that there is no "clear pathway" to release from their indefinite confinement. But those meetings surely will not resolve the fundamental problem with programs like this, which evade constitutional constraints by pretending that prisoners are patients.
Twenty states, the District of Columbia, and the federal government have laws that authorize the civil commitment of sex offenders who would otherwise be released after serving their prison terms. The Supreme Court upheld the practice in 1997, saying it was appropriate for people who "suffer from a volitional impairment rendering them dangerous beyond their control."
That logic is puzzling. The state punishes people who commit sex crimes based on the assumption that they could and should have controlled themselves. But when it is time for them to be released after completing the punishment prescribed by law, the state says that was not actually true; now they must be locked up precisely because they cannot control themselves.
If the government decided to retroactively increase an offender's penalty, it would be clearly unconstitutional, amounting to double jeopardy or an ex post facto law. The trick is to cast continued confinement as treatment rather than punishment.
But what if treatment almost never produces a cure that allows a detainee's release? In Minnesota, only 13 detainees have been unconditionally released since the program was established in 1994; more than six times as many have died in custody.
Back in 2015, when not a single "client" had been certified as fully cured, U.S. District Judge Donovan Frank concluded that Minnesota's "treatment" was a sham designed to conceal "a punitive system that segregates and indefinitely detains a class of potentially dangerous individuals without the safeguards of the criminal justice system." In the United States, he said, "we do not imprison citizens because we fear that they might commit a crime in the future."
Yet, that is manifestly what laws like Minnesota's do, confining some 5,000 people not for what they did but for what they might do. Even if that rationale were constitutionally valid, studies from across the country indicate that recidivism among sex offenders, including those who qualify for civil commitment, is far less common than the Supreme Court assumed.
While condemning Frank's ruling, then-Gov. Mark Dayton conceded that civil commitment decisions are no better than guesswork, because "it's really impossible to predict whether or not [sex offenders] are at risk to reoffend." That did not faze the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit, which overturned Frank's decision on the ground that people "who pose a significant danger" do not have "a fundamental liberty interest in freedom from physical restraint."
Virginia, which began civilly committing sex offenders in 2003, has a much better track record than Minnesota. While Minnesota has conditionally released less than 4 percent of its detainees, meaning they are no longer imprisoned but are still subject to supervision, Virginia has granted that status to 60 percent of its detainees.
Democratic State Sen. Joe Morrissey nevertheless argues that Virginia's program is "abhorrent to everything that our democracy and our criminal justice system believes in." Morrissey recently introduced a bill that would have abolished the program.
Last month the Senate Judiciary Committee derailed Morrissey's bill, referring it to the Virginia State Crime Commission for a study. "We don't sentence people because of what they might do," Morrissey says. For now, that remains an aspiration rather than a reality.
It’s hard to know what Jacob Sullem is getting at.
How is it hard to recognize unconstitutional behavior within the government and then put a stop to it?
At the end of the article, it even presents a quote: “We don’t sentence people because of what they might do”
Not only that, but if the sentence was 2 years in prison then after that 2 years has been served they should be released. Not placed under additional burdens.
This is an article about sex offenders. At some point soon, they are going to use this as a tool against conservatives. Keep that in mind when you think\say they need to be left in prison to rot.
Perhaps the end run around the Constitution?
"He still seems obsessed with liberty, personal accountability, individual rights and the constitution. Another treatment failure. Add electric shock to his treatment regimen and reapply for release in 2 years."
Exactly.
C.S. Lewis made that explicit point in his novel "That Hideous Strength".
“We don’t sentence people because of what they might do”
There are a lot of things wrong here, including with the folks being discussed - and some important pieces of information are missing. Why are these particular people kept when others are let loose? They aren’t keeping *everyone*, so what is the basis for the decision?
Yep. Who are these folks?
Are they the folks that are so blatantly sex-oriented they can’t stop touching themselves for 5 minutes, or are they folks who now act completely normal - considering that they have been in prison?
“Why are these particular people kept when others are let loose? They aren’t keeping *everyone*, so what is the basis for the decision?”
Yes.
I don’t think NicoDon, PghBaldy and marktwain are making serious comments.
Why are only these criminals treated this way? It is unfair that other criminals, including murderers, are treated differently. I find it abhorrent that sex criminals are detested to such an extreme that unjust treatment goes on because we think it won’t ever happen to us. Is murder more forgivable than rape?
They certainly knew who the guy was that I mentioned. He clearly said next time he’d kill and he believed they couldn’t do anything about it. Unfortunately, most people don’t wear a warning label.
Step one to normalizing the behaviors. Also see tagline.
We treat sex criminals differently mainly based on the claims of mental health “experts” who are incapable of curing any of sort of mental disorder anyhow. About all they do in these hospitals is apply drugs and ECT. Both of those “treatments” invariably make the patients worse and more likely to reoffend. Their is no treatment for these criminals that actually works and gets results. Not one. The shrinks’ claims otherwise are simply part of their scam.
Of course this dirty truth about the Mental Health Industry applies to non-sexual based criminals as well. In any case if you want to keep sex criminals locked up forever than make life imprisonment the penalty for the crime. Using shrinks and their fraudulent and destructive system as an end run around basic human rights is wrong. After all if a bank robber says he plans to rob again, he gets released after his sentence ends. He wouldn’t get parole but when the full sentence is up out he goes. Sex criminals should not be treated any differently. Otherwise this trick will be used to keep other types of offenders locked up indefinitely according to the whims of the State.
I’d rather worry about a few more perverts running around than the dangers of a State that can lock up anyone indefinitely based on the opinion of shrinks... arguably the most crazy people of all.
Exactly.
C.S. Lewis made that explicit point in his novel "That Hideous Strength".
Mark gathered that, for the Fairy, the police side of the Institute was the really important side. It existed to relieve the ordinary executive of what might be called all sanitary cases--a category which ranged from vaccination to charges of unnatural vice--from which, as she pointed out, it was only a step to bringing in all cases of blackmail. As regards crime in general, they had already popularised in the press the idea that the Institute should be allowed to experiment pretty largely in the hope of discovering how far humane, remedial treatment could be substituted for the old notion of "retributive" or "vindictive" punishment. That was where a lot of legal Red Tape stood in their way. "But there are only two papers we don't control," said the Fairy. "And we'll smash them. You've got to get the ordinary man into the state in which he says 'Sadism' automatically when he hears the word Punishment." And then one would have carte blanche. Mark did not immediately follow this. But the Fairy pointed out that what had hampered every English police force up to date was precisely the idea of deserved punishment. For desert was always finite: you could do so much to the criminal and no more. Remedial treatment, on the other hand, need have no fixed limit; it could go on till it had effected a cure, and those who were carrying it out would decide when that was. And if cure were humane and desirable, how much more prevention? Soon anyone who had ever been in the hands of the police at all would come under the control of the N.I.C.E.; in the end, every citizen. "And that's where you and I come in, Sonny," added the Fairy, tapping Mark's chest with her forefinger. "There's no distinction in the long run between police work and sociology. You and I've got to work hand in hand."
The crux of the issue is deprivation of civil rights under the law. The basic precept is that you can detain someone convicted of a crime for a specified sentence period as incarceration. Or you can detain someone for court ordered treatment; but only as long as it takes to provide that treatment. Once treatment is done, that person is to be released. He cannot be subject to continued incarceration just because you have a hunch he may reoffend. Likewise, The idea that you can hold someone indefinitely under the guise of “treating him” violates the persons rights.
This differs from NGRI btw. When someone is found not guilty by reason of insanity the rules are different. In those cases, the person is subject to periodic “risk assessment” to determine if he is to be released.
This article is light on the facts. The process by which people are civilly committed for child molesting is no different than the process by which people with mental health issues are civilly committed. There is a court trial where the person can have an attorney and can be evaluated by outside doctors. This isn’t a criminal trial, but a matter of public safety based on state law. The people in these states passed these civil commitment statutes and the opponents want the Supreme Court to overturn these laws. Just like people who are insane and have exhibited or stated they have a propensity to harm others, civilly committed molesters remain in custody until they can show they won’t harm others. These pervs told their doctors these things, which is why they are still committed.
This isn’t the big bad federal government keeping people in secret gulags, but people in states passing laws to protect themselves from predators who will never stop making victims of children.
So lock down states, and leave the border wide open! Hypocrisy on covid to the ninth degree!
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