Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Criminal Law Blogs -> Sex Offender Issues

Criminal Law

: Sex Offender Issues

NY - Confining sex offenders comes at high cost

Original Article 02/13/2011 By Gary Craig In New York, the end of a sex offender's prison term doesn't mean freedom. In 2007, spurred in part by a White Plains murder, state lawmakers approved a civil commitment program designed to route dangerous sex offenders into treatment in secure psychiatric facilities or intense outpatient programs after their prison sentences end. What they may have overlooked were the long-term costs and the likelihood that treatment space could one day become an expensive dilemma. That day has come. Only in its fourth year, civil commitment is coping with cost and space strains. Since many offenders who are locked away are unlikely to be released for years, if ever, the costs will continue to escalate. "I don't know that there was a whole lot of thought (about the costs)," said Al O'Connor, a staff lawyer and civil commitment expert with the New York State Defenders Association...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sex Offender Issues on January 27, 2011 (boomark / email).