by Charles Platt
“The Supreme Court ruled Monday that federal officials can indefinitely hold inmates considered ‘sexually dangerous’ after their prison terms are complete.” (Washington Post)
Since it is her duty to do so, nominee Elena Kagan argued the government’s case in favor of indefinite detention. She “compared the government’s power to commit sexual predators to its power to quarantine federal inmates whose sentences have expired but have a highly contagious and deadly disease.”
Clarence Thomas dissented, saying he could find no provision for this in the US Constitution. That’s one cheer for Clarence. Scalia was the other dissenter. The remaining justices couldn’t find anything wrong with the legislation that legitimizes this indefinite detention.
It seems to me, there is a spectrum of risk, here. At one end of the spectrum, we keep society safe by locking up everyone indefinitely who has committed a crime against another person. At the other end of the spectrum, we don’t bother to lock up any of them. Somewhere between these two extremes is a reasonable compromise, where we accept some risk in the interests of returning people to the community so that they have a chance to earn a living and pay taxes (and child support in some cases), while we no longer have to pay for them to be incarcerated.
Unfortunately legislators and DAs have created such a climate of fear, there’s a sense that any risk is unacceptable. This may explain why the US has more prison inmates, both by number and as a percentage of its population, than any other nation in the world.
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I sat on a jury for the indefinite commitment of this man:
http://www.meganslaw.ca.gov/cgi/prosoma.dll?searchby=offender&id=1869408304076
It was a civil process but the prosecution was required to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the man posed a danger to children despite his sentence having ended. When he was last sentenced, the judge assumed he would die in jail, but he outlasted his sentence.
This guy’s been fucking children for FIFTY YEARS. As far as the records go. FIFTY YEARS. He’s not going to stop. The defense’s case was that there was no evidence to show that recidivism rates at his age warranted indefinite civil commitment in our illustrious Atascadero State mental hospital. Bullshit.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/05/17/BA4M1DG13I.DTL
Kiddie fuckers will always fuck kids. There is no cure, there is no treatment. I know we all like to sit in our ivory law tower and wax poetic about the 8th amendment and the framers’ intent, but know that in the time of the framers this guy would have been hung in the town square.
Oh, but it makes perfect sense in a society that believes that car travel is safe and airplane travel is dangerous…
This blog post by Bruce Schneier is on point: http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2010/05/worst-case_thin.html
Interesting how you led into that: “Since it’s her duty to do so…”
Presumably Kagan also *believes* in the position. I say that because it seems that setting the precedent that indefinite detention of someone for potential future crimes is ok, is not exactly small potatoes.
If she didn’t believe in this position, thought it were a miscarriage of justice, or felt it was in conflict with the constitution or the principles of a free society in general, I would expect that Kagan’s “duty” would be to take some other action aside from following orders. Sure, it’d be bad for her long term ambitions (perish the thought), but it would also be the right thing to do…
Either you follow the rule of law, or you petition to change the law. That should be simple enough. “Everyone knows that child molesters are irredeemable” does not do it for me.
I agree with this sentiment. All of this would be avoided if the sentences were X years in prison followed by Y years to life of civil commitment or something like that.
I’d prefer longer sentences, but indefinite seems strange.
[...] give paedophiles free rein in your country? No. In fact, the US "sex offender" laws are utterly draconian. But at least our Internet remains (for now) relatively free, unlike Oz and NZ [...]
[...] give paedophiles free rein in your country? No. In fact, the US "sex offender" laws are utterly draconian. But at least our Internet is relatively free (for now), unlike Oz and Kiwiland [...]
I don’t have anything against men, in fact I’m married but I do think that all men who work with kids should be given penile plethysmograph tests to make sure that they are not attracted to children.
Mothers, please remember the over 90 percent of child molestation is done by a dad, a brother, an uncle or a grandfather. Family friends should always be monitored closely as well. Never and I mean ever leave their kids in the care of any male.
Wow. So when my father and I went on vacation together, when I was around 15, that was a very dangerous proposition, right? Too bad it was also one of the most cherished experiences of my life.
Don’t you think there is such a thing as balanced risk assessment? Or is your post merely a troll?
If you become totally obsessed with “child safety” you are heading down a road to deprive them of many valuable experiences. You should keep them in Skinner boxes or issue them with chastity belts.
And by the way, I was molested when I was young. By my mother.
Being married doesn’t make you not sexist.