In 2006, Congress passed the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act, which established a civil commitment procedure to keep dangerous federal sex offenders behind bars after their sentences were complete. Some inmates challenged the law, stating that Congress had exceeded its powers, and it was overturned by a federal appeals court. Now, the Supreme Court has reversed that decision and upheld the law.
Read Supreme Court upholds federal sex offender law on the Christian Science Monitor.
This is a START, but notice that it ONLY applies to FEDERAL criminals, and most rapists and sex offenders are not charged under federal laws, but under state laws—unless they take a person ACROSS A STATE LINE or some other violation of “federal” laws.
I do hope, however, that STATEs follow this lead in the civil commitment of dangerous sexual offenders as well.
The BEST thing about this law is that it is a START in recognizing that some people are just too dangerous to turn loose on the world!~ TOWANDA!!!!!
Ox I wonder if one day they will extend it to psychopaths just because….. The relationship to sex – well- it goes in the direction….
I wonder if indeed it might affect anyone I know?
For those interested here is a link to the complete court decision http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/09pdf/08-1224.pdf
Of course the UK has something similar to this already in place and running called the DSPD program (which also includes psychopaths). It was launched in 1999 and has cost an estimated 200 million pounds but they are considering ending the program because the program has been ineffective and has had a very high rate of false positives.
I think that the same may happen here as well. The actuarials commonly used are in question of just how effective they really are. For example if you remember Anthony Sowell he scored a low 1 on the Static-99 yet now he is accused of killing 11 women. (you can see his assessment here http://www.cbsnews.com/htdocs/pdf/psych_eval.pdf?tag=contentMain;contentBody). John Gardner III scored a 2 on the Static-99.
It is extremely difficult to try to pick out these kind of people because of the problem of low base rates. If you only have one sex offender out of ten who is paroled who will re-offend it is difficult to pick out that one and it is even harder, I would say next to impossible, to pick out those who commit the really rare crimes like Sowell’s and Gardners.
The majority of people arrested for sexual offenses are never rearrested for another sexual offense. (which does not mean they did not reoffend) and the majority of sexual offenses are committed by people who have never been caught before. To catch them would entail huge over-prediction which would result in a massive amount of false positives.
Rather than pouring money into the back end after the crimes have happened i would hope we would pour more money and resources into the front end of prevention programs that actually do help to reduce crime.
Sadly bad things happen in life and we can’t predict or prevent them all from happening.
I’ll say it, again: Spath Island………
That’s not all the Supreme Court did lately. They also ruled that life imprisonment for juvenile offenders was “cruel and unusual” punishment.
I thought they showed great wisdom.
I do think it’s wrong to seal juvenile records. I think those adults whose behavior mirrors their youthful offenses should have those earlier offenses included in their criminal records. We’ll see if that ever happens.
Elizabeth, I agree – some of the juvenile records relate directly to ADULT crimes. If the “system” had access to this information, appropriate sentencing would be easier to hand down. At 18, most juvenile records are automatically expunged in most States. This means that the 15 year old who presented a history of sociopathic crimes is a first-time offender when they’re charged with an adult crime.
Dear Elizabheth,
Well, as much as I respect you and your opinions, personally I DISAGREE with you about not allowing life WITHOUT PAROLE for juviniles who are not convicted of killing.
There are things WORSE than killling, so therefore a kid age 17 yrs and 364 days who rapes and mutilates 10 women/girls but none of whom actually DIE cannot be kept in prison for “life without parole” but must instead be given a “reasonable chance for parole” ???????
I also disagree with the law that says a criminal’s record of 27 previous rapes can’t be brought up at his rape trial either….might “prejudice” the jury? BULL HOCKEY!!!!!
Previous criminal history should be MANDATORY when courts are forced to try such cases. Without a frame of reference, how can they make a reasonable decision about consequences?
Life without parole………Spath Island, I say. It’s an attempt at gallows humor, but I honestly DO feel that it’s a viable solution for these predators.
Dear BHlogger,
Thanks for posting your usual bevy of INFORMATION, which is of course always valid and informative! The “assessment” tool they were using, though, didn’t seem to me to be all that “great” (just off the top of my head) in picking out the ones that will reoffend/get caught reoffending.
So, if only 1 in ten previously prosecuted sex offenders (gets caught) reoffending, what is the answer? Why does the country bother then with registering sex offenders at all. According to the registration agency here in Arkansas they INITIALLY REGISTGSTER 5,000 NEW individuals per year here in Arkansas, which means that 500 of those will RE-offend—how should those 500 (10%) be picked out of the group?
Also, how are the “answers” to the questions on the assessment tool gotten? Is the word of the sex offender only, a self report as it will? Is that the way the Trojan Horse P went from a HIGH LEVEL VIOLENCE, LIKELY TO REOFFEND LEVEL 4 in Texas rating, go down to a 2, not even on the MAP level in Arkansas when he was “reassessed” Considering he had 3 separate violations, convictions, prison sentences, drug problems, violence problems, broke every parole he was ever on, etc? as well as ASPD diagnosis, and Bi-polar and was most recently in prison for weapons violation???????
None of this makes ANY sense to me at all. I’m about to go with Buttons on “S-pathy island” LOL
If my experience tells anything, it is that the good guys do understand these disordered but so often lack the teeth in the legal system which includes DA’s Judges and attorneys to do what needs to be done to invoke the options for sentencing them.
I can only think of the parole officer who was generous enough to open the door of understanding to me on the fateful day.
The path that has folloewd from there over and over re enforces that he “got it” and shared enough with me that I could find out what is true too.
I think they are doing what can be done with this guy and I hope for my own sake and for any as yet unspecting victim, that they do in fact find they way to help him enjoy ongoing but peculiar hospitality.
I also think this means that what we talked about on LF of joining the legions of those willing to understand the laws, the problems and the process that is needed to deal with these people are obligated to go out in the world and evangelize what we have learned.
And that will mean participating in political process and community.
But, isn’t that what it is all about?