[Truth Addict]

But no matter! We should never be called upon to sacrifice our principles when we can furnish human ones instead.

That has to be among the darkest sarcasm I have ever read. Our court system is clearly inadequate in protecting our children from these predators.

There was a time when such menaces were locked up in "insane asylums", not so much for their treatment, but to protect society from their predations. While there were abuses at these facilities, we need to return to a system like this, but with somewhat tighter controls.

In Florida, we have the Baker Act, which allows for involuntary admission to mental health facilities under certain conditions, among them:

Criteria: A person may be taken to a receiving facility for involuntary examination if there is a reason to believe that he/she is mentally ill and because of his/her mental illness:
(2). There is a substantial likelihood that without care or treatment he/she will cause serious bodily harm to him/herself or others in the near future, as evidenced by recent behavior.

This type of law ought to be used more often in these cases, but the psychiatric profession has been lowering the bar on defining sex offences as mental illness lately; they have already removed homosexuality as a mental illness, and they are close to doing the same with pedophilia. This must be reversed, and the Baker Act and other similar laws must be utilized to remove these predators, so our kids can walk through their neighborhoods without fear of molestation again.

[Jim Noble]

>>In Florida, we have the Baker Act, which allows for involuntary admission to mental health facilities under certain conditions<<

This is not a medical problem.

[Eala]

There was a time when such menaces were locked up in "insane asylums", not so much for their treatment, but to protect society from their predations.

Gosh. It was not that long ago we (Reagan?) lambasted the Soviets for the practice of imprisoning, in the guise of "treatment", those deemed to be a threat to society. But if it makes us safer, well...

.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Drudge, but President Hillary has declared you to be a threat to society. Come along now."

[wretchard]

Preemptive action against a Saddam Hussein -- or a pedophile -- has been sarcastically described as punishing a precrime, with some justification. The Baker Act asserts that the benefit of the doubt does not extent to mental incompetents; that we can take crazies in hand before they hurt someone, much as we would children.

The other approach has been the Clear and Present Danger Doctrine, in which Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes asserted that no restriction could be applied to freedom of speech unless the particular speech, article, or book in question presents a clear and present danger. The conceptual extension is the current Presidential Finding authorizing action against Saddam Hussein because he constitutes a "clear and present danger".

It would seem that the burden of proof for the Baker Act would be less than required under a "clear and present danger" approach, and less menacing to the structure of our liberties. (Though I may be wrong). The internment of Japanese Americans, the premptive detention of suspects in Northern Ireland under the Prevention of Terrorism Act anticipate acts which may or may not eventuate. These preemptive acts have sometimes prevented tragedy and have as often caused great injustice. The problem with predicting the future is that it hasn't happened yet.