Source: mhanational.org (Mental Health America)
Summary
Sexual crimes are an unspeakable tragedy and among the most serious forms of violence imaginable. This is especially true when the victims are children. In response, at least twenty states and the Federal government have enacted “sexually violent persons” legislation.1 These laws provide for indefinite commitment of persons who have committed sex offenses after they have completed prison terms for these same crimes.2 We currently confine more than 6,300 people as sexually violent persons.3
Mental Health America supports using the criminal justice system to convict persons who have committed sex offenses and lengthy sentences when these are needed to protect the public. However, Mental Health America opposes using the mental health system to confine sex offenders because sex offenses are generally not the result of mental illnesses.4 These laws are not an effective or cost- effective way to reduce sex offenses and committing sex offenders to mental hospitals often threatens the safety of persons who do have treatable mental illnesses that require inpatient psychiatric care. Addressing sex offenders within the mental health system is also a misallocation of resources that would be better spent on community and victim support, primary prevention and holding sex offenders accountable through the criminal justice system.5
Main message
The enactment of sexually violent persons laws has not reduced sexual violence.6 The rate of sex offenses is not lower in the twenty states that have enacted such laws than in the thirty that have not.7 Mental Health America believes that states should devote their resources to prevention and to the appropriate use of the criminal justice system to hold accountable those who have committed sex offenses. When lengthy confinement is a necessary and appropriate sanction for persons who have committed sex offenses, we should use the criminal justice system and its sentencing laws to impose such confinement, not the mental health system.
Supporting messages
We should reserve mental health commitment for people who have diagnosable and treatable mental illnesses. States enacted special laws for sexually violent persons rather than using existing commitment laws because the mental conditions that are the basis for sexual predator laws were not included in the definition of mental illnesses in existing commitment laws.8 Because the conditions which lead to commitment under sexually violent persons law are difficult to diagnose and treat, it is difficult to determine when someone has recovery and should be released. This either results in inappropriate releases, which endanger the community, or unnecessary and lengthy confinements, which are quite expensive and are unjust deprivations of liberty.
The implementation of sexually violent persons laws demonstrate that they use mental health commitments when punishment is the intent. Only convicted sex offenders are eligible for these commitments. Other people who may be as likely or more likely to commit sex offenses are not. Those committed are often confined in prison-like environments9 and expressly denied the rights afforded…
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