“You knew you were going to die here,” said Craig Bolte, a sex offender who has been held here nine years and who says he would rather be sent to prison, where “there is still hope.”
But now Minnesota’s civil commitment program — which detains more people per capita than any other state — is facing an overhaul. Earlier this year, a federal judge found it unconstitutional, calling it “a punitive system that segregates and indefinitely detains a class of potentially dangerous individuals without the safeguards of the criminal justice system.”
October 30, 2015
"Yet not one of the more than 700 sex offenders who have been civilly committed in Minnesota over the past two decades has actually gone home."
"And only a few men have been provisionally discharged to live outside of state facilities under strict supervision."
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
34 comments:
Do not expect the Government to keep you safe.
If you want the Government to keep you Safe From All Harm, these civil commitments are the result. Indefinite incarceration for all people who *might* cause you harm. Your safety is worth more than someone else's freedom, am I right? I said Am I Right?
Rape used to carry a death penalty. Now they've decided to keep them in boxes. Expensive, but we're rich. But they can't let them out.
Is today's theme sex offenders?
That's why -- when I walk the streets at night and happen to see again that girl who walks past her window naked at approximately 9:50 PM -- I don't report her to the Police.
No Hot Naked Chick should have to suffer in a 'treatment center' just for being Hot and Naked.
It is Our Little Secret.
I am Laslo.
"MadisonMan said...
If you want the Government to keep you Safe From All Harm, these civil commitments are the result. Indefinite incarceration for all people who *might* cause you harm. Your safety is worth more than someone else's freedom, am I right? I said Am I Right?"
What fucking drivel. This is the same stupidity that Obama pulls...a choice between two false options.
No one is asking the government to keep them safe from ALL harm moron...or even thinking of themselves necessarily. I think exposing ANYONE to these monsters is wrong. And they lost their freedom because of their actions, not others desires for safety.
But maybe one of these released offenders will rape your daughter. Then you can make your little speech to her to salve the wounds.
Putz
But maybe one of these released offenders will rape your daughter.
Maybe they will (I doubt it), Curious George, and then you can come here and compassionately say "I told you so".
You think someone should lose all freedom for a bad choice. I don't.
The difference between us is that I don't call you stupid.
Sigh. Guys, I just don't know what to do about sex offenders.
Thoughts in no particular order:
*It's wrong to punish people for theoretical future crimes
*It's wrong to create a class of people who cannot participate in society in a healthy way, for their sake and for the rest of us (do we really want them living under a bridge downtown trading tips)
*Folks get weirdly hysterical about sex crimes in relation to other kinds of abuse which often get shrugs
*No one has really figured out how to treat sex offenders so they don't reoffend
*Sex offenses are usually defined overly broadly (my husband refused, on a recent road trip, to whizz in the woods behind a mostly deserted isolated gas station with an out of order bathroom because that harmless stuff gets people on lists these days)
*All our strategies and tactics can only by definition apply to those who have been caught and convicted
I don't even know what we should be doing here.
I sense a "There's a theme on the blog today" post soon.
Sure. Let em out. Who will speak for their future victims? Remember this waste of carbon? Previously convicted Level 3 sex offender. Let out of jail. What could go wrong? http://murderpedia.org/male.R/r/rodriguez-alfonso.htm
I'm guessing the families of the future victims will understand, that we must feel for these monsters. Never mind that sex offender have a recidivism rate of 10% to 35%. http://www.dshs.state.tx.us/csot/csot_trecidivism.shtm
It will likely be someone elses daughter, child, mother or brother sexually abused and possibly killed. So, are you and yours feeling lucky?
At least we'll get to indulge in feeling righteous about ourselves...
"MadisonMan said...
Maybe they will (I doubt it), Curious George, and then you can come here and compassionately say "I told you so".
You think someone should lose all freedom for a bad choice. I don't.
The difference between us is that I don't call you stupid. "
A "bad choice?" That's what you think rape, or child predation is? I call you stupid because you are.
It's like a big cryotank where they keep these people frozen until someday maybe a cure is discovered.
At the cryo institute they get paid to keep people frozen. The more patients they have on ice, the more money comes in. They have no incentive to go through the files and keep track of whether a cure has been discovered for any one individual. Plus, if you thaw somebody out and the cure fails, who gets blamed? Much safer to just keep them frozen. After all, they're frozen for a reason, right?
Sounds like Minnesota is going to do about the only thing they can do, go through on a case by case basis and find out if anybody is being kept frozen who could be thawed out and treated. I expect, when the review is completed, most of these guys will remain on ice.
There's the fiction that they are there for treatment.
And one problem is that many of them may not have committed the kind of offense which you would rationally fear would be repeated.
A further thought - their sex drive can be cancelled. There are some (never approved by the FDA if course) medications or chemical compounds that will do this, with a lot less side effects than what they used several deades ago in the United States.
Thank God this issue is finally going to be addressed. There is so much about Minnesota government that truly sucks, and that is glossed over by the local news media.
I Have Misplaced My Pants said...*Folks get weirdly hysterical about sex crimes in relation to other kinds of abuse which often get shrugs
That is absolutely true. Our reaction to sex crimes completely lacks a sense of proportion as we destroy lives over trifles.
The 50s and probably earlier got along fine without any of this stuff.
Just a note from history.
Popular hysterias missing, yet undiscovered as ratings gold, in the 50s:
1. Drunk driving
2. Child abuse
3. Loose dogs
I think there was another that escapes me at the moment. Apparently a society can get along just fine without them.
Also, microagressions were then an art form.
I think the point is not that we shouldn't lock sex offenders up for life.
The point is that if we shouldn't lock anybody up for life who has not officially had a life sentence handed down to them by a criminal court.
This is what happened to McMurphy in "One Flew OVer the Cuckoo's Nest".
Strange how at that time he was the sympathetic figure, even after the whole "She was fifteen-years-old, going on thirty-five..." answer he gave to the Doc.
How upset can you really allow yourself to get over a situation where some 15yo chickie who knows what she was put on earth to do and goes out and does it? The poor you will always have with you...and sluts too, God bless 'em.
Someone else's freedom is worth more than your safety, am I right? I said Am I Right?
You think someone should lose all freedom for a bad choice
No, they should lose all freedom for a crime and as an ongoing threat to society.
*It's wrong to create a class of people who cannot participate in society in a healthy way,
Society doesn't create that class, they create themselves by their actions.
*No one has really figured out how to treat sex offenders so they don't reoffend
Which is why we lock them away as a threat to society. Our only other option, which used to be the norm, is to kill them.
Sex offenses are usually defined overly broadly
This is the actual problem. By defining sex offender down, we conflate the guy taking a pee by the side of the road with the serial rapist.
60 years ago when a rapist was convicted he wound up in the main yard of the toughest prison in the state. Average life expectancy six weeks.
60 years a rapist was clearly something bad. I should shank a fellow inmate over some Tinder clusterf**k?
garage NOT actually pulling the trigger and moving to Minnesota makes a great deal of sense now.
Someone else's freedom is worth more than your safety, am I right? I said Am I Right?
Yes. I am responsible for my own safety. The government cannot keep me safe. Whether or not someone else is free -- not much bearing on my responsibility to keep myself safe, although knowing of a threat is useful. Perhaps I value freedom more than safety, compared to you.
If Rapists and child molesters are such a threat, the sentence should reflect that. The sentences don't.
People who want absolute safety should be arguing for lifetime sentences. They should open up their checkbook (an archaic thing, I know. I realized this week that I have written no checks in the past 25 days!) to pay the tax increases necessary to support it.
So let me understand this. We used to execute rapists until the Supreme Court decided that was cruel and unusual punishment. Now we sentence rapists and other sex offenders to prison terms, but then when the terms are up, we put them in "treatment" programs until they're "cured", which is never.
The rationale for this is that we think that such offenders, if released into society, would offend again. Sounds like a violation of due process to me.
Now we're in the process of enacting legislation to release other kinds of criminals back into society sooner than prior law allowed, even though something like three-quarters of them will offend again within five years.
So why not just sentence severe sex offenders to life terms, but make them eligible for parole after a certain number of years if they've showed that they're not a threat to society?
I think the point is not that we shouldn't lock sex offenders up for life.
The point is that if we shouldn't lock anybody up for life who has not officially had a life sentence handed down to them by a criminal court.
Agreed, the idea that the legislature could in effect retroactively lengthen someone’s sentence after they’ve been tried, convicted and sentenced but not committed any additional offense ought to be troubling to anyone who cares about due process. It’s one thing for the legislature to set a mandatory minimum sentence in advance but quite another to change it after the verdict.
Thorley: More than "troubling", surely. See Article 1 section 9 clause 3.
Perhaps I value my safety over the freedom of a rapist more than you. Hell I know I do, because I 'd just as soon shoot him like I would a mad dog.
If Rapists and child molesters are such a threat, the sentence should reflect that. The sentences don't.
You're completely right here. The sentences should be death.
People who want absolute safety should be arguing for lifetime sentences.
Absolute safety is impossible. I'd settle for reasonable, which is not what we have today.
Forget life sentences, kill them.
Agreed, the idea that the legislature could in effect retroactively lengthen someone’s sentence after they’ve been tried, convicted and sentenced but not committed any additional offense ought to be troubling to anyone who cares about due process
So what do you do about the ones that you know will re-offend as soon as they are free?
So what do you do about the ones that you know will re-offend as soon as they are free?
You don't "know".
This system is insane, and indefensible.
Rapists are sentenced to prison all of the time.
A lot of these people who are being talked about now, have been evaluated that they will commit a sex crime if they are released as soon as they can. There are people like that.
Others, I would imagine, gave a defense at trial that they were mentally incompetent to be placed in a regular prison. Guess what, good luck with that defense.
Post a Comment