9-9-1997 Position Statement:
In its June, 1997 decision in Kansas v. Hendricks, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the use of a civil commitment process to continue the confinement of sexually violent criminal offenders who are found to have a "mental abnormality" that causes them to pose a danger to others, even if they are not found to have a "mental illness." In upholding the statute, the Court gave the states broad discretion to define mental abnormality and to determine whether a violent sex offender who has completed his or her prison sentence poses a continuing danger to others.
The Court's conclusion that the civil commitment of dangerous sex offenders who do not have a mental illness is constitutional does not necessarily mean that such laws represent good policy. The National Association of State Mental Health Program Directors (NASMHPD) believes that some statutes could have severe and negative consequences for people with mental illnesses and for the public mental health system.
Specifically, NASMHPD believes that legislation allowing for the civil commitment of dangerous sex offenders who do not have a mental illness to psychiatric hospitals following completion of their prison sentences creates the following significant risks:
Laws which provide for the civil commitment of dangerous sex offenders for purposes that are principally punitive or for the purpose of continuing confinement, rather than for the purpose of providing treatment or psychiatric services, disrupt the state's ability to provide services for people with treatable psychiatric illnesses and undermine the mission and integrity of the public mental health system.
The civil commitment of dangerous sex offenders who may or may not respond to existing treatment modalities and who will require enormous resources for very long lengths of stay diverts scarce resources away from people who have been diagnosed with a mental illness and who both need and desire treatment.
The commitment of dangerous sex offenders to psychiatric facilities could endanger the safety of others in those facilities who have treatable psychiatric illnesses.
NASMHPD recognizes concerns about the dangers that criminally violent sex offenders may pose upon release from prison. NASMHPD believes that these concerns should be addressed through sentencing or other alternatives within the criminal justice system. Nonetheless, if civil commitment processes are adopted to address these concerns, such statutes should adhere to the following principles: Statutes used to civilly commit dangerous sex offenders who do not have a mental illness should be distinct from existing statutes for the civil commitment of people with mental illnesses. Laws which do not clearly distinguish these procedures stigmatize the civil commitment process and people diagnosed with mental illnesses who receive services under a commitment process. Such stigma prevents people from seeking necessary and effective treatment for diagnosable mental illnesses.
Facilities and treatment programs for dangerous sex offenders should be administered and funded outside the state mental health agency in order to maintain the mission and integrity of the public mental health system. Confinement and treatment of dangerous sex offenders or others who do not have a diagnosable mental illness are beyond the scope of that traditionally administered by state mental health agencies.
Treatment programs for dangerous sex offenders should be administered under programmatic guidelines and philosophies that recognize the differences between these criminal offenders and people with diagnosable psychiatric illnesses.
Facilities for the confinement of dangerous sex offenders should be separate from facilities for the treatment of people diagnosed with mental illnesses to ensure the safety of others and to maintain the distinct commitment status of the criminal offenders.
If dangerous sex offenders are confined in facilities under the purview of the state mental health agency, it is imperative that the mental health agency play a significant role in determining commitability and diagnoses, treatment strategies, and lengths of stay for sex offenders civilly committed under the statute.
Laws providing for the civil commitment of dangerous sex offenders should be narrowly drafted to ensure that they apply only to dangerous and violent sex offenders who pose a significant risk to society if released.
Treatment for people determined to be dangerous sex offenders should be initiated during criminal incarceration. Treatment programs should be rigorously examined, both during incarceration and after, to determine effectiveness and to measure outcomes based on the reduction of recidivism rates.
NASMHPD joins the American Psychiatric Association in calling for an increased investment in research on paraphilic disorders and in the clinical training of mental health professionals regarding assessment and treatment of people with those disorders. In addition, NASMHPD believes that state mental health agencies should initiate and participate in broader early prevention and intervention efforts to facilitate development of skills and competencies that help all people to build healthy, meaningful, and socially responsible lives.
Adopted by the NASMHPD membership on 9/9/97.
The National Association of State Mental Health Program Directors (NASMHPD) represents the public mental health service delivery system serving 6.1 million people annually in all 50 states and 5 territories. ..Source..
November 28, 2008
POSITION STATEMENT ON LAWS PROVIDING FOR THE CIVIL COMMITTMENT OF SEXUALLY VIOLENT CRIMINAL OFFENDERS
September 21, 2007
Sex Offenses and Offenders: An Analysis of Data on Rape and Sexual Assault
February 1997 NCJ 163392 (revised 2/7/97)
Foreword
This report draws on more than two dozen statistical datasets maintained by the Bureau of Justice Statistics and the Uniform Crime Reporting program of the FBI to provide a comprehensive overview of current knowledge about the incidence and prevalence of violent victimization by sexual assault, the response of the justice system to such crimes, and the characteristics of those who prey on victims of all ages by committing sexual assault or rape.
This report reinforces a striking observation in recent studies about crimes involving rape and sexual assault: In a high percentage of cases, the victims are children. In self-reported victimization surveys of the public age 12 and older, teenagers report the highest per capita rates of exposure to rape and sexual assault. Data drawn from police-recorded incidents of rape in three States revealed that 44% of rape victims were under the age of 18. The self-reports of convicted rape and sexual assault offenders serving time in State prisons indicate that two-thirds of such offenders had victims under the age of 18, and 58% of those--or nearly 4 in 10 imprisoned violent sex offenders--said their victims were age 12 or younger.
Though the vast majority of violent sex offending involves males assaulting female victims, females account for a small percentage of known offenders, and males account for a small percentage of victims. In a very small fraction of sexual assaults, victim and offender are of the same sex.
Victim and offender are likely to have had a prior relationship as family members, intimates, or acquaintances. Victims of rape and sexual assault report that in nearly 3 out of 4 incidents, the offender was not a stranger. Based on police-recorded incident data, in 90% of the rapes of children younger than 12, the child knew the offender; two-thirds of the victims 18 to 29 years old had a prior relationship with the rapist. The FBI's UCR arrest data, as well as court conviction data and prison admissions data, all point to a sex offender who is older than other violent offenders, generally in his early thirties, and more likely to be white than other violent offenders-- characteristics that match the information obtained from victims who describe the offender to interviewers in the National Crime Victimization Survey.
This report was prepared as background information for the Assistant Attorney General's 1996 National Summit Promoting Public Safety Through the Effective Management of Sex Offenders in the Community. It presents a thorough analysis and compilation of the currently available national data, but we anticipate that even more will be learned in the coming years as BJS assembles data on rape and sexual assault from the redesigned National Crime Victimization Survey and surveys of felony probationers, local jail inmates, and State and Federal prison inmates. ..more.. by Lawrence A. Greenfeld, Statistician, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice
Important Excerpts:
Sex offenses and murder
After the latter half of the 1980's, the percentage of all murders with known circumstances in which investigators identified rape or another sex offense as the principal circumstance of the murder has declined from about 2% of murders to less than 1%.
Between 1976 and 1994 there were an estimated 405,089 murders in the United States. Of these, the circumstances surrounding the murder are known in 317,925, or 78.5%. Among the cases with known circumstances, an estimated 4,807, or 1.5%, were classified as involving rape or another sex offense.
Offenders in sexual assault murders are about 6 years younger on average than other murderers. Youth under 18 have accounted for about 10% of the sexual assault murders since 1976.
September 16, 2007
The Crime of Stalking: How Big Is the Problem?
November 1997
Scientific information on stalking in the United States has been limited, despite unprecedented media, legal, and legislative attention to the subject over the past decade. To better understand the broader context of violence in which stalking occurs, the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) collaborated in a comprehensive survey of violence against
women. The National Violence Against Women Survey, conducted by the Center for Policy Research, collected data from 8,000 women and 8,000 men 18 years of age or older on a broad range of issues related to violence.
This Research Preview discusses the stalking aspects of the study. Further findings from the survey are anticipated by spring 1998. With regard to stalking, the survey
collected data on:
- The prevalence of stalking.
- The characteristics of offenders, victims, and stalking behaviors.
- Victims’ perceptions of why they are stalked.
- The co-occurrence of stalking and domestic violence.
- Victims’ responses to stalking, including their involvement with the justice system.
- The psychological and social consequences of stalking.
Survey findings indicated that stalking is a bigger problem than previously thought, affecting about 1.4 million victims annually. The survey showed that stalking was
strongly linked to the controlling behavior and physical, emotional, and sexual abuse perpetrated against women by intimate partners. About half of all female stalking
victims reported their victimization to the police and about 25 percent obtained a restraining order.
To screen for stalking victimization, the survey asked about specific harassing and threatening behaviors respondents had experienced repeatedly from marital and
cohabitating partners, friends, acquaintances, relatives, and strangers. The word “stalking” was not used in the survey. Researchers defined stalking conservatively—as “a course of conduct directed at a specific person that involves repeated physical or visual proximity, nonconsensual communication, or verbal, written, or implied threats” sufficient to cause fear in a reasonable person.1
The survey was fielded between November 1995 and May 1996. The national sample of households was generated through random-digit dialing; interviews averaged 25 minutes and were conducted using a computer-assisted telephone interviewing system. Of those who started the interview, 97 percent of women and 98 percent of men completed it. ..more.. by Patricia Tjaden, Ph.D., Center for Policy Research
June 27, 2007
Child Sexual Molestation: Research Issues
June 1997 NCJ 163390:
civil commitment study skewing this study.
Executive Summary
Over the past 25 years, the problem of child sexual victimization has received significant attention from researchers, clinicians, and policymakers. Yet underreporting of sexual offenses against children has made it impossible to gauge either the frequency of such incidents or the size of victim and offender populations. In addition, deficient research methodologies have yielded incompatible or contradictory findings with regard to the characteristics, motivations, and recidivism rates of offenders. As a result, critical decisions about offender dangerousness, control, and treatment have been made in the absence of a sound knowledge base. In recent years, however, efforts have been made to (1) develop and validate an empirically based model of the agents and factors that lead to child sexual abuse, and (2) design and test statistical methods for assessing reoffense risk.
Important findings:
n The classification, diagnosis, and assessment of child molesters are complicated by a high degree of variability among individuals in terms of personal characteristics, life experiences, criminal histories, and reasons for offending. There is no single “profile” that accurately describes or accounts for all child molesters.
n Sexual focus in child molesters has two independent dimensions: intensity of pedophilic interest and exclusivity of the sexual preference for children. The more an offender’s sexual preference is limited to children, the less socially competent (as measured by the strength and range of social and sexual relationships with adults) he is likely to be.
n Most victims of childhood sexual abuse do not go on to become child molesters. However, sexual victimization as a child, if accompanied by other moderating factors—such as the co-occurrence of other types of abuse—may contribute to the child-victim’s later emergence as a perpetrator of child sexual abuse. Similarly, social competence deficits are clearly significant in child molestation, but an individual’s inadequate social and interpersonal skills do not, by themselves, make his sexual abuse of children inevitable.
n A history of impulsive, antisocial behavior is a well-documented risk factor for certain predatory, extrafamilial child molesters; offenders who have this background and who began their offending careers in adolescence have also evidenced higher degrees of nonsexual aggression.
n Early childhood experiences, such as a high turnover in primary caregivers (which is a strong predictor of adult sexual violence), may interfere with the development of viable, age-appropriate adult relationships, making it more likely that children are selected as sexual targets.
n Physiological arousal to children often accompanies a sexual interest in them. Phallometric assessment of sexual arousal in response to depictions of children can differentiate child molesters from nonmolesters, same-sex molesters from opposite-sex molesters, and extrafamilial molesters from incest offenders.
n An empirical classification typology for child molesters, based on stable traits that have identifiable roots in childhood, is being developed by NIJ-supported researchers. Known as MTC:CM3, the system classifies child molesters according to variables on two coordinates: the first focuses on fixation and social competence, and the second focuses on contact with children, injury to victim, and
sadism. The system is an important first step in the design of research on etiology, treatment, disposition, and prognosis. Although further revision and refinement of the typology are necessary, studies support the reliability and validity of the classification structure.
n Recidivism rates across studies are confounded by differences in legal guidelines and statutes among States, length of exposure time (i.e., time in the community, where the opportunity exists to reoffend), offender characteristics, treatment-related variables (including differential attrition rates, amount of treatment, and integrity of treatment program), amount and quality of posttreatment supervision, and many other factors.
n A 25-year followup study of 111 extrafamilial child molesters included extensive data from criminal justice records and rationally derived composites of variables. The study demonstrated an ability (1) to discriminate among offenders who committed sexual crimes involving physical contact with a victim, nonsexual crimes involving physical contact with a victim, and nonsexual crimes in which no physical contact with a victim occurred and (2) to predict reoffense probabilities with reasonable accuracy. If these results can be replicated in studies of other offenders, use of a scale based on archival records may represent an easy, cost-effective, and reliable substitute for intrusive and time consuming physiological assessment.
n Although optimal treatment interventions have yet to be identified, the most effective intervention to date—cognitive behavior therapy and, when appropriate, antidepressant and antiandrogen medication— has reduced recidivism among child molesters.
n Intensive community-based supervision and management of child molesters are essential to reduce sexual victimization rates; child abusers have been known to reoffend as late as 20 years following release into the community. ..more.. by Robert A. Prentky, Ph.D. -and- Raymond A. Knight, Ph.D. -and- Austin F.S. Lee, Ph.D.
May 25, 2007
Sex Offenses and Offenders: An Analysis of Data on Rape and Sexual Assault
February 1997, NCJ-163392
Foreword
This report draws on more than two dozen statistical datasets maintained by the Bureau of Justice Statistics and the Uniform Crime Reporting program of the FBI to provide a comprehensive overview of current knowledge about the incidence and prevalence of violent victimization by sexual assault, the response of the justice system to such crimes, and the characteristics of those who prey on victims of all ages by committing sexual assault or rape.
This report reinforces a striking observation in recent studies about crimes involving rape and sexual assault: In a high percentage of cases, the victims are children. In self-reported victimization surveys of the public age 12 and older, teenagers report the highest per capita rates of exposure to rape and sexual assault. Data drawn from police-recorded incidents of rape in three States revealed that 44% of rape victims were under the age of 18. The self-reports of convicted rape and sexual assault offenders serving time in State prisons indicate that two-thirds of such offenders had victims under the age of 18, and 58% of those ¾ or nearly 4 in 10 imprisoned violent sex offenders ¾ said their victims were age 12 or younger.
Though the vast majority of violent sex offending involves males assaulting female victims, females account for a small percentage of known offenders, and males account for a small percentage of victims. In a very small fraction of sexual assaults, victim and offender are of the same sex.
Victim and offender are likely to have had a prior relationship as family members, intimates, or acquaintances. Victims of rape and sexual assault report that in nearly 3 out of 4 incidents, the offender was not a stranger. Based on police-recorded incident data, in 90% of the rapes of children younger than 12, the child knew the offender; twothirds of the victims 18 to 29 years old had a prior relationship with the rapist. The FBI’s UCR arrest data, as well as court conviction data and prison admissions data, all point to a sex offender who is older than other violent offenders, generally in his early thirties, and more likely to be white than other violent offenders ¾ characteristics that match the information obtained from victims who describe the offender to interviewers in the National Crime Victimization Survey.
This report was prepared as background information for the Assistant Attorney General’s 1996 National Summit Promoting Public Safety Through the Effective Management of Sex Offenders in the Community. It presents a thorough analysis and compilation of the currently available national data, but we anticipate that even more will be learned in the coming years as BJS assembles data on rape and sexual assault from the redesigned National Crime Victimization Survey and surveys of felony probationers, local jail inmates, and State and Federal prison inmates.
Jan M. Chaiken, Ph.D.
Director, Bureau of Justice Statistics
Laurie Robinson
Assistant Attorney General Office of Justice Programs
..more.. by Lawrence A. Greenfeld, Statistician, Bureau of Justice Statistics
