federal government can keep some sex offenders locked up after they serve their sentences

[The Straight Story]

CNN has this:
Supreme Court rules federal government can keep some sex offenders locked up after they serve their sentences.
http://www.cnn.com/

[itsrobert]

1. good!

n/t

[derby378]

2. Uh, not so good...

Who decides who gets detained after the sentence is served? Do we let the guy who brutally raped two adult women walk out of the prison, but keep the guy who merely flashed his weenie at an elementary school student behind bars?

[pipi_k]

5. Well I think we also need to exercise a little common sense...

Weenie flashers probably aren't even in the same class as rapists and child molesters/sexual abusers.

[derby378]

10. I agree...

...but I don't want the entire process to become arbitrary. There may be some legitimate Eighth Amendment issues to face if we're not careful with this, too.

[jberryhill]

13. Gee, maybe we can get together a group of people...

And have this group of people write down things that make "common sense" specifying who should be imprisoned for how long if convicted of a particular act.

We can then call these things "laws", and we can have "courts" which determine whether someone broke one of these "laws", and send them away for the period of time that the group of people wrote down in their book.

That would be one way to do it, but I realize it is a little far-fetched.

[msanthrope]

24. I adore this post. n/t

[msanthrope]

22. Why is the confinement of people who are mentally ill and dangerous to

society even remotely controversial????

Perhaps reading the opinion would help????

[jberryhill]

31. It wasn't until the Reagan administration

...but two things happened.

On the one hand, you had civil rights claims by those who were institutionalized improperly, leading to a broader question of how, in a democratic society, we decide who gets locked up and who doesn't.

On the other hand, you had governments looking to cut budgets.

So, in a marriage of convenience, the city streets of the US became open-air psych wards.

It's one thing when you consider homeless advocates working for affordable housing and employment access for relatively psychologically healthy persons who have had a run of bad luck and society has abandoned. It's quite another thing when you see some guy on the street gesticulating wildly while engaged in a non-coherent argument with invisible people. That guy doesn't need an affordable home or a job, he needs medication, therapy, and a cot and three hots while figuring out if he could ever get and hold a job and be responsible for maintaining a dwelling independently.

I also assume without looking, that the substance of the decision and the issue actually addressed, bears little relation to the headline or reactions here. That is also typical of popular treatment of Supreme Court decisions.

[msanthrope]

33. ah--yes, the great Reagan 'liberation' of the homeless

Which was blamed on 'liberals', and not on the cuts to the federal housing program.....

I remember it well.

And yes, most of DU has failed to grasp the true import of this decision--which is the upholding of Congress's power under Nec&Prop. The Thomas dissent is a stunning call for judicial activism....

[redqueen]

44. Good question. (nt)

[kenny blankenship]

3. Why doesn't the President just assassinate them already ?

Seriously, he asserts his prerogative to assassinate citizens without charges or trial. Well, these prisoners have been tried already. Should make it twice as easy for him. I'm not saying he should be limited to killing Americans who have been tried and found guilty, for we know he is not. Let the President determine who is a threat to the safety of the people and cull them out. I believe it worked this way in western civilization for many, many centuries until the liberals started making everything impossible with their braying about rights and Constitutions.

[Usrename]

23. That system works so well for meeting out capital punishment.

Oh, wait...

[pipi_k]

4. Well, if the government had kept my pervert BIL locked up

past his release date, I know of at least two more little girls (making the known total seven) who would have been spared his attentions.

[WinkyDink]

11. It wasn't the Federal govt's purview to BE THE JUDGE TO ADD MORE TO THE SENTENCE.

This is like "Governor Dukakis, how would you feel if your wife Kitty were raped and murdered?"

[msanthrope]

27. They didn't "add to the sentence"--you could try READING the opinion, you know. n/t

[KansasVoter]

6. Horrible! How about murderers? Why not keep them also? What is the point of a sentence???

Why even sentence someone if the government can decide to keep you longer?

Wow, Wow, Wow. People just 'react" to stuff and don't think it through.

[dickthegrouch]

19. I've never understood how a sentence of 3-5 years could be legal

or 15-20 or any other indeterminate number. The only thing that makes sense is the lower number being the minimum time to serve if well-behaved. However I think I've seen things like "only served 3y 8m of a 5-7 year sentence".
Can anyone shed any light?

[WinkyDink]

7. This is incredible. Either make the sentences more severe, or accept the debt as paid. These extra-

legal decisions, whether by POTUS or SCOTUS, are exceedingly threatening to a so-called democracy.

[KansasVoter]

8. + 1000

[Echo In Light]

9. Agreed. Numerous slippery slopes in a failing empire

[msanthrope]

26. The confinement of mentally ill people who are a danger to society is evidence of a

failing society???

I mean, aren't we supposed to do that?

[Echo In Light]

36. No...that's your extrapolation. Not what I said or implied.

[uponit7771]

16. Yeap, they're basing the findings off studies...this isn't right

[msanthrope]

45. What findings? Where? What action do you claim is being taken 'based on studies?' n/t

[msanthrope]

25. Why is the confinement of mentally ill people who are a danger to society remotely

controversial???

I mean, not for anything, but we are talking about people judged to be mentally ill---and a danger to others.

How is this wrong?

[MyNameGoesHere]

30. I don't know. Do you have a crystal ball that shows the future?

The law actually is asking for future crimes detention. Who has the fucking crystal ball? And the law does not seem to stipulate confinement to a mental health institution. Just indefinite imprisonment. A life sentence for something a person may or may not commit. Don't sound like America to me, but perhaps some prefer gulags.

[msanthrope]

32. Did you miss the part about being too mentally ill to function in society without being a danger to

others????

I'm pretty sure that the people making that determination aren't using crystal balls.

[MyNameGoesHere]

40. Then what method are they using?

They have no proof of a future crime and no crystal ball. So what do they base their future crimes on? Come on tell me. You prove to me that someone is, 100% without any reasonable doubt, going to commit a crime. You can't do it can you?

[msanthrope]

43. What method? Can't you read the law?

If you want detail, read the opinion.

It will give you the relevant statute section.

Then, google it.

Then READ the relevant section of the code. Please note, you may have to read other sections of the code, as linked. (Seriously, you should.)

Then, once you have read up on the 'method' used, you can come back here and understand why I am laughing at your proposed standard of 'proof'.

When you have found the correct standard to use, you might then argue a tad bit more intelligently on the law you claim to dislike.....

[MyNameGoesHere]

48. I have read it and the

laws it overturns. It even mentions future crimes. So please do tell me how it can be determined, by current standards to commit someone for a future crime? You are the laughable one.

[Johonny]

39. There's a difference between prison and a mental illness facility

in theory, in the USA unfortunately our prisons serve as both because we don't fund the treatment of the mentally ill. Thus the negative reaction of people on the board.

[msanthrope]

46. Okay--but these guys are already in psychiatric care, not 'prison' general pop.

While I get what you are saying, there's no evidence here that BOP doesn't have them where they should be....

[Johonny]

38. I agree

[Orsino]

42. Or stop pretending that we are punishing evil...

...and get serious about treating illness.

Plenty of offenders remain dangerous after serving sentences--why a double standard for genital-related crimes?

[old mark]

12. Slippery slope, OK - but please understand there is NO CURE for pedophiles and

sexual predators. They are now assigned to "therapy groups" - the therapy is mainlytalk, the groups are used to keep tabs on them and monitor where they are and what they are doing.
There really are no medicines or drugs that work, and even sugrical removal of the testicles has been proven not effective.

How about consideration for the rights of kids to live and to live without being raped by an adult repeat offender?


mark

[uponit7771]

18. Who says there's no cure? Some study?

[msanthrope]

29. Yes. What do you think government uses when assessing guilt? Think they just make it up?

Or do you think that careful legislators look at impact, recidivism, and offender probabilities as documented, in, you guessed it....studies?

[old mark]

41. A friend of mine runs a program of group counseling for sex offenders. I worked with

several pedophiles and predators for several years in a state mental hospital.

There is NO CURE.

mark

[Ladyinblack]

20. No Cure

Treatment of sexual predators in my experience is not effective. Pedophiles are especially resistant.
I worked with sex offenders. Professionally some do not belong on the street ever again. I would think this would be in forced selectively. There are different types of rape. However rape may tend to get more violent as time goes by. We above all should protect our children. I am often surprised at how lenient judges are. I am often surprised at the mental health profession who think that a cure does exist.

Want to get scared? especially if you have a child or you are female. Look up how many registered sex offenders live in your area.














s

[Vinnie From Indy]

21. Really?

So, in effect, you are offering that ALL Americans must relinquish the Constitution and the rule of law becuase of this one issue. I agree with making sentences more severe rather than imprisoning people after they have served their time simply because somebody said so. A slippery slope indeed. What class of people will be next?

[msanthrope]

35. How is confining the mentally ill who are a danger to others, relinquishing the Constitution? n/t

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

14. self delete for stupidity

[MousePlayingDaffodil]

15. The two "no" votes . . .

Were Justices Thomas (who wrote a dissent) and Scalia (who joined it).

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

17. Wow! Thanks. Then we truly are screwn

[msanthrope]

28. No--I suggest you read the opinion, and the dissent.....

Why the locking up of mentally ill people who are a danger to society is controversial, I'll never know...

But in the dissent, Thomas tries to hamstring Congress via the Nec&Prop clause....it's a stunning call for judicial activism.

[jberryhill]

34. It is controversial, because it has a history of abuse

The Soviets would diagnose political dissidents as "mentally ill" and lock them up.

If you have the magic infallible "dangerosity" detector machine that's one thing. If you have a designated and licensed class of professionals with complete discretion to put people away for indeterminate periods, that's another thing.

In principle, the mentally ill should get appropriate treatment, including confinement of the dangerous mentally ill who cannot be treated. But principle and unerring practice are two different things, and pretending it is as easy as snapping one's fingers leaves out a whole lot of complexity and difficult subsidiary issues.

[msanthrope]

37. I'm not suggesting it's easy--nor should it be. In fact, the process should be

difficult for the government to do.

And the federal government has had a confinement clause since the 1940s---this statute expands it a bit. I don't see abuse of this as a historical problem--in fact, I can't recall a single federal case.

[Bluebear]

47. Police States are born like this.