Source: prisonlegalnews.org 6/1/24 On December 20, 2023, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit held that an Illinois prisoner’s challenge to civil commitment as a sexually violent person after release cannot be raised under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, unless the underlying civil commitment is first terminated in his favor or shown to be invalid “through another outlet.” The ruling extended application of the principal laid out in Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477 (1994), that a civil rights challenge to prison disciplinary action is barred whenever a favorable…
Read MoreTag: Civil Commitment
MN: Study: Minnesota’s sex offender civil commitment system is ‘failed investment’
Source: startribune.com 4/24/24 The state is spending more than $110 million this year on a sex offender program that locks up about 730 people. A new report calls for an end to the 30-year-old system. Minnesota involuntarily commits more people for sex offenses than anywhere else in the nation per capita, but authors of a new report say the more than $100 million-a-year program fails to meaningfully address sexual violence or recognize the humanity of those it locks up. Twenty states civilly commit sex offenders. Among those, Minnesota is “notorious”…
Read MoreIL: Seventh Circuit Slams Illinois Civil Commitment Program but Reverses Injunction
Source: prisonlegalnews.org 1/1/24 “Very weighty interests are at stake when a state institutes a program of civil commitment for sex offenders who, though never tried for or convicted of a crime, are found too dangerous for release.” So began a ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit on July 24, 2023, in a challenge to a lower court’s order mandating improvements in Illinois’ civil commitment program, operated under the state’s Sexually Dangerous Persons (SDP) Act. Unfortunately, those interests were not deemed weighty enough to convince the…
Read MoreIA: Prisoner advocates feel more hopeless after sex offense civil commitment presentation
Source: newtondailynews.com 12/5/23 Families and advocates of incarcerated individuals at Newton Correctional Facility had been waiting months for the Iowa Board of Corrections to provide some semblance of an answer to their questions regarding the state’s civil commitment program. It was finally put on the agenda. Open for all to see. Although the department of corrections and its board members acknowledged their concerns, advocates left the meeting last month feeling hopeless. Despite a presentation about the sex offender civil commitment referral process from its program manager, Ken Pirc, those in…
Read MoreNY: They Were Supposed to Be Free. Why Are They Locked Up?
Source: thenation.com 10/14/23 No one wants a person convicted of a sex offense in their neighborhood. So New York keeps them in prison long past their release dates. Jory Smith was supposed to be free. His sentence had been up for five days on August 28, 2020, when officers at Marcy Correctional Facility, a medium-security prison in upstate New York where Smith had spent almost five years, summoned him to a conference room. But instead of releasing him, they said they were taking him to another prison. Confused, Smith asked…
Read MoreSC: Sex crime suspect can’t face criminal trial but can be confined, SC high court rules
Source: postandcourier.com 6/22/23 COLUMBIA — He was not convicted of the sexual crimes South Carolina accused him in 2005 of committing. After years of forced psychological hospitalization, the doctors at the state Department of Mental Health recommended he be transferred to a residential care facility, as he was treated for schizophrenia and schizotypal personality traits. But South Carolina’s High Court ruled June 21 that it’s constitutional for the state’s top lawyer to seek to keep Francis ____ confined anyway. In a case originating out of Lexington County, the state Supreme Court…
Read MoreFor Some Convicted Sex Offenders, Finishing Their Sentences Doesn’t Mean They Get To Go Home
Source: route-fifty.com 5/22/23 Several states are civilly committing sex offenders when their prison terms end. The Bureau of Justice Statistics may soon begin collecting data about the practice—and finally shed some light on how widespread and effective it is. Looking to confine sexual offenders deemed a continuing risk to the public, lawmakers in 20 states, plus Washington, D.C., and Congress, passed laws around the turn of the millennium allowing for the involuntary civil commitment of these convicted offenders when their prison terms ended. But nearly a quarter of a century…
Read MoreCivil Commitment Does More Harm Than Good
Source: truthdig.com 5/22/23 Civil commitment facilities actually foster the traumatic and violent conditions that they are supposed to prevent. As if serving a prison sentence wasn’t punishment enough, 20 states and the federal Bureau of Prisons detain over 6,000 people, mostly men, who have been convicted of sex offenses in prison-like “civil commitment” facilities beyond the terms of their criminal sentence. Around the turn of the millennium, 20 states, Washington D.C., and the federal government passed “Sexually Violent Persons” legislation that created a new way for these jurisdictions to keep people locked up — even indefinitely…
Read MoreMN: The possible ripple effects of MN Supreme Court’s ruling on state sex offender program
Source: cbsnews.com 2/1/24 The possible ripple effects of MN Supreme Court’s ruling on state sex offender program Or watch the video on cbsnews.com website
Read MoreFL: He Served 18 Months for a Sex Offense. He’s Re-Imprisoned Anyway, Possibly for Life.
Source: flaglerlive.com 9/21/22 Under Florida law, imprisonment does not depend only on proven guilt of a crime. It can also result from the possibility of a future crime. The imprisonment can be up to life. The offender has few avenues of appeal. The case is not even public. The documents on which it is based are sealed from public view. It is a little known but disquieting side of Florida law, permissible under the so-called Jimmy Ryce Act, which allows the “involuntary civil commitment” of sexually violent and dangerous predators…
Read MoreMN: Locked Up For Good—Or Forgotten?
Source: minnesotamonthly.com 4/19/21 Minnesota has the highest per-capita commitment rate of sex offenders nationwide, and one of the lowest release rates The Minnesota Sex Offender Program housed at Moose Lake is tucked away in the woods, off State Highway 73, about 120 miles north of Minneapolis. The high-security facility surrounded by fences topped with razor wire is out of sight and out of mind for most Minnesotans, which leads those locked inside—some who already have served time and others who haven’t even been charged of a crime—to call it a…
Read MoreTX: Protestors make alarming allegations about statewide sex offender treatment program in Littlefield
Source: everythinglubbock.com 4/11/22 LITTLEFIELD, Texas – Protestors gathered in front of the Civil Commitment Facility in Littlefield on Saturday morning to shine a light on the injustices they said are happening within the barbed-wire fences of the former prison. Texas created the Civil Commitment Program in 1999; like 20 other states, this kind of program allows state agencies to mandate sex offenders, who have already served their time in prison, to partake in treatment programs intended to mitigate possible reoffending in the future. In 2015, Governor Abbott reformed the program…
Read MoreTX: Public awareness event at the Texas Civil Commitment Program
posted on FAC website 3/18/22 April 9th, 10:30am Central Time, in front of the Texas Civil Commitment Center, 2600 S. Sunset Ave, Littlefield, Texas 79339 @ 10:30am Please join us for a public awareness event at the Texas Civil Commitment Program on Saturday, April 9 to rally against abuses within the program and call for a meaningful pathway to release. Our plan for those who will be coming into town Friday the 8th of April, (the day before) is to stay at the Best Western Inn located at 2600 Hall…
Read MoreACSOL New Jersey Action Alert: Petition to Abolish or Reform the New Jersey SVP Civil Commitment Law
Source: Jim Grushack started this petition on Change.org to New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy The symbol above is associated with the legal system and the principles of fairness and equity. Then, why is it that the symbol of justice, is wearing a blind fold? Is it because the legal system only wants to see, what it wants to see? Plus, she is carrying a sword, to protect and to cut through to the truth. So what truth is she protecting, certainly not the accused sex offender? Eleanor Roosevelt once stated, “Justice…
Read MoreNC: Man civilly committed as a sex offender for child abuse on Crow Indian Reservation
Source: ktvq.com 10/1/21 A man accused of sexually molesting young girls on the Crow Indian Reservation has been civilly committed as a sexually dangerous person under the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006. In a press release issued by the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of North Carolina, authorities said Oliver _____, 33, was ordered taken into custody. The United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of North Carolina litigates all Adam Walsh Act cases for the entire country. All sexually dangerous persons…
Read MoreMN: Long Weekend Protest Rocks Minnesota’s Shadow Prisons
Source: texansagainstcivilcommitment.com 8/29/21 MOOSE LAKE MN. Behind barbed wire fences a protest movement is swelling for an end to Minnesota’s Shadow Prisons, “treatment facilities” that detainees say are an unconstitutional death sentence. Nearly 800 people are held indefinitely outside of any criminal proceedings, after finishing prison sentences or without being convicted of a crime on civil allegations of being “mental ill” and “sexually dangerous”. Since Friday, and culminating in a protest led by detainees in walkers and wheelchairs this Monday, over a hundred detainees across racial lines have staged four…
Read MoreTX: Former Staffers Condemn Cruel Treatment of Inmates at a Texan Prison for Sex Offenders
Source: reason.com 8/12/21 The men must keep masturbation diaries, wear ankle monitors, and even use penile circumference gauges. Lenore Skenazy For many men serving time for committing sex offenses in Texas, their prison term never really ends—even if they complete their sentence. That’s because they’re required to enter a live-in mental health facility before returning to society. That facility—in Littlefield, Texas—is actually a former maximum security prison in the middle of a dirt field. “It comes as a surprise,” says Mary Sue Molnar, founder of Texas Voices for Reason and…
Read MoreWomen Against Registry Joins OCEAN Community Rally Against Civil Commitment
Source: womenagainstregistry.org 7/26/21 On Sunday, July 18, 2021, Women Against Registry joined anti-registry activists and anti-civil commitment activists representing five Midwestern states in an outdoor community rally at the Minnesota State Capitol Building in St. Paul. The event was compiled by the Voices of OCEAN, a coalition of family members and loved ones of those indefinitely detained at the Minnesota PreCrime Preventative Detention Facility (Also known as MSOP). About 75 persons were in attendance, including a brief visit from a Minnesota legislator and a speech from Minnesota Supreme Court candidate…
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