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Civil Commitment for Sex Offenders

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Korthor

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Evidently, there is an increasing trend for states to civilly confine sex offendrs. [see article at http://www.economist.com/world/na/displays...tory_id=8866809]

Is there a justification for indefinitely confining criminals who are liikely to be recidivist after they have served their prison terms? I would be inclined to say NO. After all, the rates of recidivism amongst almost alll criminals is very high. Nonetheless, this really strikes at the heart of the purpose of the criminal justice system. There are generally three offered:

1) retribution (justice)

2) deterrence

3) incapacitation

Arguably, the prison system fails on all three counts... but with the most disgustingly violent of offenders, are there any creative solutions beyond indefinite incarceration? Especially, solutions reconcilable with the 4th Amendment demand for "due process of law"?

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Arguably, the prison system fails on all three counts... but with the most disgustingly violent of offenders, are there any creative solutions beyond indefinite incarceration? Especially, solutions reconcilable with the 4th Amendment demand for "due process of law"?
There shouldn't be any creative solutions, and there should be statutory ones. The solution has to come in reforming the nature of punishments under the law, and giving serious consideration to life imprisonment under well-defined circumstances, for a first offense. Once rehabilitation is taken out of the punishment mix, then I think the way is clear for serious incapacitation, which would be appropriate given a particularly heinous crime. There generally is a statutory range of penalties for crimes, which means that e.g. a drunken brawl would not necessarily land one in prison for life, but brutally beating a person up to (but not reaching) death could. I see this as a problem with sentencing laws.
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The aspect of civil commitment of sex offenders that bothers me is its apparent non-objectivity. The New York Times ran a series on this new trend, and found offenders in some states civilly confined after their prison terms ended for relatively minor crimes and others set free after their prison terms ended for crimes as serious as violent rape.

Sentences should be objective. The practice of imposing somewhat arbitrary extensions of punishment periods after a sentence has been completed is reminiscent of the non-objective law seen in a dictatorship. On the other hand, these criminals were put in jail after the establishment of guilt at a trial, and the reason for their continuing commitment is a psychological assessment that they represent a continuing threat. As far as I know, civil commitment is only imposed for sex offenders who are presumably beset by serious psychological compulsions to commit their crimes. Civil commitment is not employed for other, more mundane or "rational" (?!) crimes such as murder or robbery that, presumably, do not involve uncontrollable psychological compulsions.

From the descriptions I read of these sex offenders, some of them sound like rather obvious compulsive deviants. On the other hand, in my mind I also imagine Jack Nicholson in the movie One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, someone who is basically normal but goes insane from his confinement.

The whole debate raises the broader question of the involuntary commitment of the seriously mentally ill, for the safety of society and themselves. Certainly, it can be objectively established that certain individuals are insane and should be confined for the protection of everyone. The question is, is such an objective standard being used for these sex criminals who are being civilly confined after they have served their sentences? Does such an objective standard exist?

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