By Mark Johnson
Dangerous sex offenders who a judge and jury decide are likely to continue abusing children after release from prison will be locked up indefinitely in psychiatric centers under a new law announced Thursday.
Before their scheduled release, mental health experts will assess inmates to determine if they pose a risk of committing more sex offenses. A jury will then decide whether a convict is likely to commit future crimes and a judge will rule on confining the offender or putting them under intensive supervision after release, Gov. Eliot Spitzer and legislative leaders said.
“We in government have a responsibility to do everything we can to protect the public, especially the most vulnerable in society, from clear threats to their safety and well being,” Spitzer said. “This is especially true when it comes to protecting the public from those individuals whose mental abnormalities cause them to make sexual attacks on others.”
While politically popular, the latest attempt at “civil confinement” of the worst sexual predators faces a likely constitutional challenge.
“A law giving state appointed employees and juries a role in locking someone up indefinitely because he has a mental abnormality and may commit a crime in the future creates a constitutional nightmare,” said Bob Perry of the New York Civil Liberties Union.
JoAnne Page of the Fortune Society, a nonprofit group that helps former inmates, said harsher penalties decrease the reporting of sexual abuse because they make people reluctant to turn in family members, she said, adding that a majority of sex abuse cases involve relatives.
“This is legislation by horror story,” said “This is not a law based on evidence and doing what works. It will do precious little to increase community safety.”
The agreement doesn’t sit well where the offenders would be housed, either.
“There are a lot of concerns about it from a community standpoint,” said Bryan Felitto, a retired state university administrator and former spokesman for Citizens for a Better Ogdensburg, home to one of the mental health facilities where the sex offenders will be sent. Two others will be in New York City and another will be Marcy, near Utica.
“There’s no guarantee these people won’t be released into the community,” Felitto said. “Who in their right mind would want one of these near them? This is not exactly a magnet for people to move here. It makes zero sense.”
Jake Goldenflame, a San Francisco author and a registered sex offender, said he supports the idea of civil commitment but New York officials are using it “as prison by another name.”
“No jury will cut a sex offender loose,” he said. “I question the average person’s competence to make such a determination.”
The bill, which will be introduced soon in the legislature, also eliminates parole for some sexual offenses, mandates longer periods of post-release supervision and requires treatment for all sex offenders, both during their prison terms and after they are released, officials said.
Anyone who is civilly committed is entitled to an annual hearing to determine if continued commitment is warranted, Spitzer spokeswoman Christine Anderson said.
“We’re going to try to pass it as fast as we can,” Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno said.
In November, the state Court of Appeals ruled that the state wrongly confined convicted sex offenders in psychiatric facilities under an order from then-Gov. George Pataki because the state used an improper process for their evaluation and eventual release.
Pataki said he acted out of frustration over the state Legislature’s failure for years to enact a law preventing the convicts from returning to communities where they could repeat their crimes.
Critics say that while there are some offenders who are too dangerous for society, civil confinement is expensive and covers only a fraction of pedophiles, rapists and other sex criminals. They say lifetime probation is one tactic that has been effective in reducing the number of offenders who commit crimes after they are released from prison.
