Are there circumstances grave enough to merit the suspension of law? Many would agree there are. The problem is that once the floodgate is opened, there is no telling what will pass through.

The 1980s bore witness to a number of appalling sex crimes through sensationalized media reporting. The graphic dramatization resulted in an exponential shift in public perception regarding sex offenders. But it wasn’t for another decade that the public outrage would materialize into legal and political sanctions, exorbitantly contrary to the constitution.

In 1997, the Supreme Court, in Kansas v. Hendricks, set precedent for the involuntary confinement of sexually violent criminal offenders with ‘mental abnormality’ in civil commitment programs (for all intensive purposes, a crossbreed between prison and a psychiatric inpatient facility). Previously, only a ‘mental illness’ that made one ‘likely to engage in acts of sexual violence’ would legally justify involuntarily civil commitment. The former is both more encompassing and less defined than the latter.

In addition, Hendricks gave state legislature broad discretion to define ‘mental abnormality,’ and state prosecutors discretion to determine whether a violent sex offender who has completed his prison sentence constitutes a danger to society. The official federal legislation provides for ‘indeterminate sentencing,’ artful nomenclature designed to accommodate indefinite detention. This is evidenced by figures illustrating that since 1990, 3,000 sex offenders have been mandated to civil commitment programs nationally. Only about 125 to date have unconditionally been released on medical/psychiatric grounds.

If civil commitment were merely used to restrain child molesters and rapists who have a penchant for violent non-consensual sex, I would completely support depriving them of fundamental rights and liberties. However, violent sex offenders aren’t the only ones at risk in this; prosecutors have committed exhibitionists, whose crime was non-violent AND non-contact. In fact, a Florida prosecutor unsuccessfully attempted to commit someone imprisoned for drunk driving, because of a sexual offense dating back decades earlier. Could the federal law signed by Bush giving states a monetary incentive to commit sex offenders beyond their prison term be playing into this? A $450 million annual bonus is quite enticing ‘

One might reasonably assume there would be significant benefits to an otherwise controversial system. That assumption unfortunately is erroneous. As I’ve mentioned, only 125 (from 3,000) involuntarily confined ‘patients’ have ever been released; if there were truly therapeutic benefits, wouldn’t more patients have been deemed fit to live among others by now?

Well, for one thing, patients are not obliged to participate in the actual treatment sessions. Thus, primarily driven by the realistic fear that disclosing culpable information of past deeds can lead to additional criminal charges, many do not attend. Instead, they play video games, sleep and work out ‘ all with tax dollars of course. For those who actually care to know where tax money is allocated, civil commitment costs four times more per year than prison (26k for prison, 100k for civil commitment).

Two years prior to Hendricks, the New Jersey Supreme Court upheld in Doe v. Porit the constitutionality of Megan’s Law, which required ‘low to high risk’ rapists to register with local authorities so that the community could be informed on his whereabouts. This judgment is, in my opinion, fully justifiable.

However, the generative power of judicial judgments encourages the principle set forth to expand itself beyond the limits of its logic. In January 2006, Senate Bill No. 679 provides for an alternative to civil commitment: undergo physical castration. This week’s news included a move by a Milwaukee community to prevent a sex offender from taking residency among them.

I believe some sex offenses are so heinous that physical castration is child’s play; Abu Ghraib torture wouldn’t even cut it for these folks. But what about consensual sex between a 16-year-old female and an 18-year-old male? Statutory rape is still technically a sex offense. On the road we’re walking, it won’t take long until people have trouble distinguishing your hormonal 18-year-old from the pedophile priest. As I said, once you open the floodgates, there’s no telling what will fall in.