OVER THE last few years, the Honor Committee has found that international students and athletes are the most likely to be convicted of Honor offenses. Does this mean we should keep all international athletes locked in their dorms? New York Governor Elliot Spitzer seemed to think so when he signed the Civil Confinement Sex Offender Bill into law two weeks ago. The bill strips free men and women who have already served their full prison sentence of their basic rights, uses treatments that have been proven not to work, and is very expensive. Just like Spitzer's high-profile arrests as New York's Attorney General, this act helps no one while making Spitzer look good to the public.
The confusing bill is filled with a wide variety of provisions and regulations. It begins by expanding the state bureaucracy with a new Office of Sex Offender Management. This agency is tasked with screening sex offenders whose prison sentences are almost finished. If mental health professionals deem them likely to commit another offense, they can be indefinitely confined in a metal hospital. The office will also keep sex offenders on parole under careful surveillance. Finally, the bill creates a new crime of "sexually motivated felony" which makes intent to commit a sex crime illegal even in the absence of the act.
Starting with the newly created crime, the law is simply a travesty. It means you can go to jail for thinking dirty thoughts. Civil libertarians often resort to hyperbole in arguing that some mundane restriction of rights today will end in a police state tomorrow.
But this act makes thinking about unapproved sexual conduct a felony. Other landmark legislation, like "Megan's Law," makes the community aware of sex offenders so they can be informed and take better care of their children. But this contemptible act throws people in prison for having unorthodox thoughts. The point of the criminal law is deterrence and no society that attempts to deter thinking can call itself free and open.
The other provisions of the act are a bit trickier because it is well-known that sex offenders are prone to recidivism. Still, the unnecessary addition to Albany's already bloated bureaucracy won't solve this problem. For starters, criminals who served their full sentences are free -- they have paid their debt to society. Spitzer's bill keeps U.S. citizens locked in mental institutions because a state bureaucrat says so. Their only crime is to be part of a group -- convicted sex offenders -- that is likely to break the law. But not only is keeping New Yorkers civilly confined immoral, it doesn't help rehabilitate them either.
The main treatment plan used by mental institutions for sexual predators is "relapse prevention." It treats the temptation to commit a sexual crime as a day-to-day struggle and teaches sex offenders how to avoid "high-risk situations." But there is absolutely no research to prove that this treatment works. Robert A. Pretsky, director of research at the Justice Research Institute, said that relapse prevention "has never been regarded as a legitimate and recognized topic for research." Furthermore, there is mounting anecdotal evidence that these treatments are failing.
According to The New York Times, Michael Renard Jackson, a convicted rapist, was released from his commitment center in 2005 after spending 5 years there and reaching the highest levels of relapse prevention. Two months ago he was arrested for raping and killing a young woman. Yet "on average, the civil commitment program costs four times more than keeping sex offenders in prison." Harvey Rosenthal, executive director of the New York Association for Psychiatric Rehabilitation Services, notes that confinement costs $250,000 per year whereas prison only costs $40,000 for each inmate. So Spitzer is taking millions of dollars from New York taxpayers to strip people of their liberties and provide treatments that do not work.
The only worthwhile part of the bill is increased surveillance for sex offenders on parole. Given the high recidivism rates, it's not clear why the bill doesn't simply abolish parole for sex offenders. If New York's government is so worried about repeat sex crimes, it should keep sexual predators in prison for longer rather than strip them of their rights at the public's expense. But increasing prison sentences wouldn't catch the public's eye like civil containment. When he was Attorney General, Spitzer launched a series of insurance company arrests that catapulted him into the headlines and now the governor's mansion. However, almost none of those arrests resulted in convictions and businesses fled to New Jersey and Connecticut. As governor, Spitzer is delivering the same flawed policies.
Josh Levy's columns appear Mondays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at jlevy@cavalierdaily.com.
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