Posted by Nicholas at March 13, 2007 12:04 AMNew York is about to become the 20th state with a civil commitment program for sex offenders, thereby embracing an increasingly fashionable contradiction: When sex offenders are caught and convicted, the government says they're responsible for their actions, so it locks them up. But after they serve their time, it says they can't control themselves, so it locks them up some more.
After nearly two decades of forcibly "treating" sex offenders deemed especially likely to commit new crimes, it seems clear that psychiatrists are not psychics, treatment is an expensive failure, and commitment is a euphemism for imprisonment.
Jacob Sullum, "To Life, to Life! Or Fry 'Em?: Even sex offenders can be punished too severely", Reason, 2007-03-06
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