County attorneys prefer open-ended sentences for sex offenders

Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune ^ | 01/03/04 | Paul Gustafson

[Holly_P]

Some county attorneys advocate a return to open-ended sentences in Minnesota for dangerous sex offenders as the best way to keep them off the streets and the public safe.

Under the current fixed-sentence system, they say, most dangerous sex offenders leave prison at some point, forcing prosecutors to seek civil commitments to put them in state-run treatment centers.

But the civil-commitment process can be difficult and

[Glenn]

But the civil-commitment process can be difficult and

And, what? Difficult means work?

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[Holly_P]

But the civil-commitment process can be difficult and costly, and does not always succeed, several county attorneys said.

"An important reason why we want to talk about this now is because I'm afraid there's a public perception that the civil-commitment process is adequate to put away all of the sex offenders we are afraid of. It's obviously not," said Ramsey County Attorney Susan Gaertner.

"[Open-ended] sentences would fill a need that the civil process cannot," Gaertner said. Such sentences would keep dangerous sex offenders in prison until a parole board agreed that they could be released safely, "putting the onus on them to prove they are ready for the streets," she said.

Minnesota dropped its open-ended, or indeterminate, sentencing system in 1980 in favor of a guideline system that sets down presumed sentences for most crimes, based on an offender's criminal history.

[Paleo Conservative]

County attorneys prefer open-ended sentences for sex offenders

I prefer open casket sentences for sex offenders.

[COEXERJ145]

How about a .308 to the back of the head. Problem would be solved real fast.

[WackyKat]

I don't like this "civil commitment" law one bit.

Sure, no one likes sex offenders, which is why it's being tried out on them first.

Once society has gotten used to the idea that the state can imprison you indefinitely because you might commit a crime in the future, the law will expand into other type of crimes, and finally will be used against people who hold unpopular ideas and engage in unpopular expression of those ideas.

Think I'm just paranoid?

Research how psychiatry was used against political dissenters in communist countries

[GeronL]

I prefer unending sentences

[eastforker]

Please define sex offender .This could compare to petty theft to armed robbery. What is open ended sentencing anyway? Is that where you get 50 years and let out after 5? Only to hold that over your head if you so much as look at someone wrong? Let punishment fit the crime and have it served to the fullest.

[Paleo Conservative]

Let punishment fit the crime and have it served to the fullest.

Prior to the 1960s many states had the death penalty for rapists. That was until the Warren Court ruled the death penalty unconstitutional for rape cases.

[eastforker]

When I was a kid back in High School there was a couple a kids that had been going steady for a couple of years.Andy and Doris was quite the couple alright, walking down the halls together, arm in arm at all the football games. One summer evening Andy met Doris in her back yard, one thing led to another and Doris's very controling Father walked up on them. The first thing Doris hollard was Rape, Andy hauled ass and was later arrested for rape. Now, what would a jury say about that, you think he needs the death penalty. Everyone in school knew they had been doing it for awhile, they was the same age by the way. You want to call him a sex offender? The moral of this story is: Be carefull how you label someone, their life may depend on it.

[Paleo Conservative]

Now, what would a jury say about that, you think he needs the death penalty.

Like homicide and murder, there are different levels I of moral depravity I would assign to rape depending on the circumstances. Just as someone who commits involuntary manslaughter should get a much lighter sentence than someone who commits first degree murder. I think adults who rape children (like Michael Jackson) definitely should get the death penalty.

[clee1]

This time (and those times are exceedingly rare) I am with you 100% WackyKat.

The indeterminate sentence is a travesty, and is liable to be abused.

FWIW, I would impose death or Life w/o parole for sex offenders (rapists and molesters) and be done with it

[fporretto]

A prediction for this "open-ended sentencing" business: It will get nowhere until it is renamed "therapeutic confinement" or something of that sort.

As C. S. Lewis wrote in That Hideous Strength, by taking away the name Punishment, they will succeed in making the thing infinite -- a complete dissolution of the rights of the offender to face a predetermined penalty for his deeds, however heinous.

If We The People think a particular offense deserves life without parole, or death, then we should push to have it legislated that way. But it should be down in the lawbooks in black and white. Making the penalty for any crime indeterminate, subject entirely to the whims of some unreviewable "authority" who did not sit on the jury that tried the case, is an obvious violation of the Eighth Amendment and a contravention of all common sense justice.

Freedom, Wealth, and Peace,
Francis W. Porretto
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