By Hector Flores
The Assembly's Republican minority is pushing hard for civil-confinement legislation. If enacted, the bill would allow courts to order the worst sex offenders held in secure mental facilities beyond their prison release dates. There they would receive treatment. To be civilly confined, an offender would first be given a hearing.
Assemblyman David McDonough, a Republican of North Merrick, said that only sex offenders who pose a significant threat to strike again would be civilly confined. "Assembly Republicans have been urging civil confinement law since 1993," he said. "The U.S. Supreme Court has upheld the constitutionality of civil confinement, and a similar bill has repeatedly passed the state Senate, with bipartisan support." In the Senate, the vote was 58-2 this year. McDonough added that Gov. George Pataki has said that he would sign the bill as soon as it reaches his desk.
Charles Carrier, a spokesman for the Democratic Assembly speaker, Sheldon Silver, said the Assembly plans to hold a number of public hearings on civil confinement to get more public input and to see how the program would work.
Laura Ahearn, executive director of the nonprofit Parents For Megan's Law, said, "Civil confinement allows [sex offenders to receive] the services they need when they are confined. Although there is no evidence that shows that treatment is effective, we do know that treatment can help reduce crime. We need treatment and civil confinement."
Barbara Bernstein, executive director of the Nassau chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, said, "Civil confinement is just an extended sentence, and sex offenders should receive treatment at the onset of their criminal sentence. Why start treatment after their sentence?"
Bernstein added that some attention should be given to rehabilitation, so that when offenders are released, they can become useful members of society. "There are different levels of sexual offenses, from touching to rape, and this bill makes no distinction," she said. "There should be distinctions made between cases, and each case should be treated individually and not all lumped together. We are not on the side of the predator, but we are on the side of due process."
To date, 17 states have adopted civil-confinement laws: Arizona, California, Florida, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, New Jersey, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin.
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