{"id":1576,"date":"2019-06-12T13:35:47","date_gmt":"2019-06-12T18:35:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/sex-offense-litigation-policy\/?p=1576"},"modified":"2019-07-12T13:38:59","modified_gmt":"2019-07-12T18:38:59","slug":"washington-spectator-modern-day-gulag-in-the-golden-state","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/sex-offense-litigation-policy\/2019\/06\/12\/washington-spectator-modern-day-gulag-in-the-golden-state\/","title":{"rendered":"[Washington Spectator] &#8211; Modern-Day Gulag in the Golden State"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"introduction-wrapper\">\n<p>By Barbara Koeppel | June 4th, 2019<\/p>\n<p>Back in 1997, the Supreme Court ruled that the practice known as civil commitment was legal. This meant that 20 states\u2014which had passed laws permitting the ongoing incarceration of sex offenders\u2014could continue to keep the men confined even after they completed their prison terms. (See \u201cSex Crimes and Criminal Justice,\u201d from the May 2018 issue of The Washington Spectator, available here.)<\/p>\n<p>All it took (and still takes) is for two psychologists to claim the men mightcommit a new crime and a judge to say their cases can move forward. They are then labeled sexually violent predators (SVPs) and reincarcerated in prisonlike facilities until new trials are held\u2014supposedly to determine if they will be civilly committed or released. The result? Some men have been waiting for their day in court for 15 to 20 years. In the meantime, many have died.<\/p>\n<p>No matter that the men already served their prison time. Or that psychologists, psychiatrists and lawyers I interviewed insist that very few should be confined\u2014that instead, the vast majority, many of whom are elderly or ill, should be let out.<\/p>\n<p>Eric Janus, former president and dean of Mitchell Hamline Law School in St. Paul, Minn., says that continuing to incarcerate the men to comfort fearful constituents doesn\u2019t make the public safer. The bottom line? \u201cI\u2019ve never seen numbers that show there are fewer sex offenses or re-offenses in the 20 states that have the SVP laws than in the other 30 states that don\u2019t,\u201d Janus says.<\/p>\n<p>Then why are an estimated 6,500 men still stashed away across the country? Locking up sex offenders is always good politics, but it is also extraordinarily profitable. And since California has the biggest budget and locks up the biggest number\u2014three times the next three states\u2019 combined\u2014the Golden State offers the biggest boondoggle to explore.<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Read at <a href=\"\/\/washingtonspectator.org\/koeppel-gulags\/\u201d\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"&quot;noopener noopener noreferrer\">The Washington Spectator<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Barbara Koeppel | June 4th, 2019 Back in 1997, the Supreme Court ruled that the practice known as civil commitment was legal. This meant that 20 states\u2014which had passed laws permitting the ongoing incarceration of sex offenders\u2014could continue to keep the men confined even after they completed their prison terms. (See \u201cSex Crimes and &hellip; <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/sex-offense-litigation-policy\/2019\/06\/12\/washington-spectator-modern-day-gulag-in-the-golden-state\/\" class=\"more-link\">[Washington Spectator] &#8211; Modern-Day Gulag in the Golden State<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":836,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1576","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-civil-commitment-news","7":"category-notes","8":"entry"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/sex-offense-litigation-policy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1576","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/sex-offense-litigation-policy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/sex-offense-litigation-policy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/sex-offense-litigation-policy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/836"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/sex-offense-litigation-policy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1576"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/sex-offense-litigation-policy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1576\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/sex-offense-litigation-policy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/sex-offense-litigation-policy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/sex-offense-litigation-policy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}