NCJ Number
134029
Journal
Journal of Offender Rehabilitation Volume: 17 Issue: 1/2 Dated: (1991) Pages: 105-117
Date Published
1991
Length
13 pages
Annotation
The American Bar Association has recently joined with the Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry in calling for the repeal of all extant "criminal sexual psychopath" legislation, which customarily mandates confinement for treatment for sex offenders whose crimes are attributed to psychopathology.
Abstract
Between 1937 and 1965, 37 States created criminal sexual psychopath statutes that provided that these offenders be confined for treatment rather than incarcerated for punishment; their release from confinement was predicated on a positive judgment by a "dangerousness review board" certifying that they were no longer a threat to society. However, in recent years, of States repealed their laws as a result of empirical evidence that failed to demonstrate that treatment effectively deterred reoffending. Nonetheless, evidence from Canada and some States that have been repealed or modified their legislation indicates that moving the treatment of sex offenders from the mandatory to the voluntary and relocating decisional axes from the correctional to the clinical may be the best alternative course to treating sex offenders. 1 note and 18 references