Another State Puts Civil Commitment Under Fire

The State of New York is joining the growing number of States which are questioning their Civil Commitment programs.

New York, which reportedly, “is spending more than $200,000 annually for each civilly confined sex offender in New York facilities “with those numbers (of offenders) rising every year.”

Civil Commitment is a program whereby someone who has committed a sexual offense in their past can be considered for further detention in a facility if they are deemed to be still dangerous. The detention is very “prison-like” in the sense that they are held in confinement and deprived of liberties, even though they are no longer under any criminal sanction. Worse; the detention is indefinite! Where in prison you know the amount of time you are sentenced to serve, in Civil Commitment, there is no definite duration and very likely someone sent to Civil Commitment will never be released.

In Florida, the Civil Commitment Center is run by the private for-profit Geo Group (see: http://floridaactioncommittee.org/floridas-civil-commitment-center-run-by-geo-group-is-for-profit/). We previously featured the blatant conflict of interest in this story: http://floridaactioncommittee.org/violent-sexual-predators-held-indefinitely-for-a-profit/. For those who didn’t read it; politicians come off as looking tough on sex offenders, company makes millions off taxpayers running this program, company donates money to politicians’ campaign to keep the wheels turning.

Well at least one judge in NY has the integrity to call a spade a spade, as did Minnesota with theirs. Hopefully the trend makes it’s way south to Florida.