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Full-Text Articles in Law
Sexually Violent Predator Laws: Psychiatry In Service To A Morally Dubious Enterprise, Eric S. Janus
Sexually Violent Predator Laws: Psychiatry In Service To A Morally Dubious Enterprise, Eric S. Janus
Faculty Scholarship
This article discusses the role of psychiatrists in determining the treatment of sexually violent predators (SVP). Instead of being released at the end of their prison sentences, sex offenders in the USA who are judged mentally disordered and dangerous are being confined in secure "treatment facilities" for indeterminate terms. This novel and aggressive legislative tactic—embodied in US sexually violent predator laws—commandeers the traditional power of state mental health systems and puts it in service to a core function of the criminal justice system: the control of sexual violence. This transposition of "civil commitment" has forced psychiatry to legitimate and arbitrate …
Hendricks And The Future Of Sex Offender Commitment Laws, Eric S. Janus
Hendricks And The Future Of Sex Offender Commitment Laws, Eric S. Janus
Faculty Scholarship
The Supreme Court's decision in Kansas v. Hendricks suggests that few constitutional limitations will be imposed. This article discusses the four elements imposed by the Court in Hendricks, and then discusses the likely implications of the decision, using civil commitment laws currently on the books and actual post-Hendricks decisions. The article concludes that the imbalance between commitments and discharges will cause commitment populations to grow over the foreseeable future. Eventually the huge costs of commitment schemes will force serious assessment of whether the facial logic of these programs hides seriously distorted resource allocation and anti-therapeutic side-effects.