08/31/2012
By Mike Rosenberg
SACRAMENTO -- Hoping to keep more than 100 mentally ill violent sexual predators from roaming California's streets, the Legislature on Thursday passed a bill designed to solve a new problem that's tying judges' hands.
When their time in prison is up, sex criminals who are deemed mentally ill -- and likely to strike again -- are ordered to a state protective hospital instead of being released. But psychologists who make these determinations have been removing themselves from cases after state mental health officials in April forced them to do the job full time or not at all. That's left authorities with no way to prove a sex criminal is mentally ill, since current law does not allow authorities to replace psychologists who resign.
But SB 760 (PDF), which unanimously cleared the Senate on Wednesday and is headed to Gov. Jerry Brown's desk, would allow for replacement psychologists to come in immediately. They're needed quickly: Already, two sex criminals have been released in Southern California after their psychological evaluators quit, with another case pending in Santa Clara County, two more in Alameda County and 130 others around the state.
They could be "going back on the streets and raping people. It's very sad," state Sen. Elaine Alquist, D-Santa Clara, the bill's author, said on the Senate floor following the bill's passage. "It's a common sense solution to a very heinous problem."
Well, isn't this just peachy!
ReplyDeleteNow we have a law that allows offenders to be locked up FOLLOWING their incarceration! I suppose it's OK because OTHER states like Minnesota have the same law so why shouldn't we?
Typical lack of originality...
If these people are so dangerous, why would you release them in the first place? Adopt some sort of treatment program while they are in prison and then keep them on supervised release indefinitely if when/if they are finally released!
It makes not sense to re-incarcerate somebody under the pretense of "treatment" when, statistically, they are less than likely to re-offend anyway...
Add the fact that testing used to determine one's sexual predilection towards minors is inherently subjective and flawed to the Nth degree. The ABEL test is a complete joke that has been denounced as schlock science!
So, anyway, with regards to this new Naziesque law, what is to stop them later from simply deciding that ALL offenders are mentally unstable and keeping them locked up in perpetuity?
They already bilk money out of the federal system by forcing all offenders (based on the above ABEL test results) to endure "treatment" for the entire term of their supervised release. They claim that you may work your way through the program but it's all a lie since probation has an easier time coping with people that are being supervised by somebody else. Worse for us, it gives them a chance to polygraph everyone regularly. This is something the courts would not allow outside of "treatment."
So many rights are violated and laws subverted in the cause of justice that I want to puke every time I realize what is truly going on!
As a case in point, why, if a polygraph test is meant to support "treatment" would they ask: "Have you traveled outside of your district without permission?" or "Have you ever lied to your probation officer?" I'll have to re-read the requirements of the 5th amendment against self-incrimination but it seems clear the courts won't allow it since "treatment" is a process to reveal the truth. But, when the truth is subjective and the system refuses to treat us honestly, what is this so-called truth they endeavor to reveal beyond their own failings?
Just thought I'd rant a bit...