More on the Minnesota class-action lawsuit against a civil commitment program that sentences former offenders to life in lockup: The Marshall Project blog examines the issues.
Here are a few excerpts:
- “You can’t punish people for crimes they have not yet committed,” says Daniel Filler, a professor at Drexel University’s Kline School of Law.
- Public perceptions of the untreatable pedophile are also largely unfounded. There are a small number of dangerous, intractable predators, but in general recidivism rates for most sex offenders are actually lower than those for other violent crimes.
- The politicians of this great State must now ask themselves if they will act to revise a system that is clearly broken, or stand idly by and do nothing, simply awaiting Court intervention. (Quote from U.S. District Judge Donovan Frank).