Preventive Detention of Sex Offenders

Abstract

The new generation of sexual predator (SVP) laws, which provide long-term preventive civil confinement of sex offenders, present temptations for our elected representatives and challenges for our courts. During the past generation, society has come to believe that criminal penalties for violent crime or sexual abuse cases have been far too lenient. One predictable, and constitutionally uncontroversial, response has been a general increase in criminal penalties for sex abuse offenses. During the 1980s and 1990s, our State in fact consistently increased such penalties. Because these new laws could only act prospectively, the State faced the additional question of how and whether to respond to inmates already sentenced under previous law. Eventually, our State, like several others, passed an act providing for civil commitment of sex offenders awaiting release from their prison terms.