A while back, I would overhear the registry community speak about the term ‘civil commitment.’ I thought people were discussing gay marriage? However, I quickly realized that civil commitment was much worse than the sex offender registry and a ceremony that nobody wants to attend. 

The textbook definition of involuntary commitment, civil commitment, or involuntary hospitalization is post-sentence institutional detention of an offender to prevent further offenses – in nearly all cases are sex offense related. In addition, there are locations known as civil commitment facilities designed to help diagnose and treat sex offense conditions. Thus, it is not considered a punishment but rather a means of protecting people. At least, that is what people who strongly advocate for civil commitment would say. 

The reality is that civil commitment is a cleverly crafted feel-good scheme intended to make the general public feel like there is a managed solution to critical sex offense issues. It is a system designed to give a look and feel of a hospital or treatment facility setting. Let’s be crystal clear that civil commitment facilities are identical to prisons. There are guards, fences, barriers, often jail-like uniforms where every facet of daily routine is monitored. The only difference between prison and civil commitment is that at least with prison, one knows when he/she will be released. 

The contrast between health care and civil commitment is that healthcare workers such as nurses, nurse aids, doctors, and various therapists roam the patient corridors. This isn’t found within civil commitment centers. Instead, there are plenty of guards and perhaps a sprinkling of a case manager here and there. Some former civil commitment residents have said that civil commitment feeling “is like hospice. where people go to die” because they are told, “there is no cure for people like you.” You wouldn’t find such antagonism in a professional clinical setting. There would be beneficial resources available to create a target for a successful treatment plan. But states have perhaps found their crafty cash cow pretending to be a clinic or hospital to construct a loophole from being accredited by the Joint Commission. 

Involuntary commitment isnt cheap for patients. Civil commitment doesn’t accept or participate in health insurance plans. Instead, it bills patients at inconceivable rates. For example, the state of New York recently billed a patient 1.8 million dollars or over $380,000 annually. It is highly doubtful that any patient will be able to repay such an astronomical fee. But that leaves taxpayers on the hook for potentially hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars for treatment that doesn’t appear to be working or cost-effective. Unfortunately, taxpayers are perhaps unaware of involuntary commitment programs in their states? But with the recent pandemic impacting state budgets, now may be the time where scrutiny is shined on the lavish spending by involuntary commitment programs.  

Mental health professionals have advocated that the most effective method in therapy for the treatment of sex offense is cognitive-based therapy (CBT). The Intensity and Timing of Sex Offender Treatment scholarly article is one of many evidence-based recommendations that caps a maximum of 2 years for sex offense treatment with CBT methodologies at its forefront. Yet, we continue to witness lawmakers and partisan policy advocates within the bowels of criminal justice propose ill-conceived indeterminate proposals. 

Civil or involuntary commitment is somewhat similar to the lyrics of the song ‘Hotel California’. “Relax, said the night man, We are programmed to receive. You can check out any time you like, But you can never leave! ” Essentially, civil commitment is nothing more than a disillusioned hospital or clinic where punishment is the prescription, but safety is the placebo for everyone else that fails to understand the civil commitment concept. A civil commitment that targets and warehouses sexual offenses is a hazardous and extravagant concept that quickly needs to be euthanized. Civil commitment programs are somewhat similar to the detention cells at Guantomino Bay. They are costly, unethical, political, harmful, have no practical benefit, and side-skirt fundamental human rights. 

Note: At the present time North Carolina does not participate in a sex offense based involuntary commitment similar to other bordering states such as Virginia. 

Strategies for reducing COVID-19 exposure by revising the implementation of registration policies, housing banishment laws, and other restrictions impacting people with convictions

MARCH 28, 2020 – We join numerous criminal justice organizations that have issued policy recommendations to prevent the spread of COVID-19 by suspending or eliminating non-essential police and court functions, while ensuring that law enforcement resources are used wisely to keep communities safe.

This guidance focuses on policies affecting people listed on sex offense registries. More than 900,000 Americans are subject to registration and/or housing banishment laws. The nature of these rules and regulations and the enormous number of people who must comply with or enforce them, raise urgent concerns about public health and resource allocation in this extraordinary time.

During the registration process, people are typically required to fill out forms stating their address, employer, school, phone number, vehicle data, etc. and to return, in person, to report even trivial changes.  These cumbersome registration processes tie up sworn officers who could instead be investigating crime, attending to emergencies, and assisting people in crisis.

Housing banishment laws often prohibit people from residing in the vast majority of residential areas of a city or town. As a result, those with stable homes, or several housing options, frequently become homeless anyway. This false scarcity of housing also increases prison populations as people have no legally authorized home in which to serve their parole or probation.

Even before COVID-19, the unintended consequences of these policies were well documented. The current pandemic, however, adds urgency to revise current registry and banishment practices as many of them undermine the critical public health measures being implemented nationwide to contain its spread.

The following strategies would reduce COVID-19 exposure among law enforcement officials and those required to register, as well as their families at home, and the broader community:

1. Suspend in-person registration requirements. Registration requires frequent in-person visits to police stations or jails, where dozens of people commonly congregate in waiting rooms or bullpens, multiplying the risk of transmission of COVID-19. Following the lead of Oregon and other jurisdictions, this process should be modified.
2. Waive or suspend housing banishment laws and other housing restrictions. People experiencing homelessness need emergency housing in order to comply with stay-at-home orders or self-quarantine. But many people listed on “homeless registries” have places they could otherwise reside: housing restrictions alone caused their homelessness. Likewise, prisons have backlogs of people incarcerated past their release dates, or who would be released on parole or probation supervision, if so much housing were not barred. Suspending these restrictions will allow cities to house people more efficiently, conserve emergency beds, and give prison officials the flexibility to place people in homes they already have available. This will protect their populations from the heightened risk of contagion created by needless incarceration and homeless encampments when there are safe available homes for people on the registries.
3. Waive or suspend arrests and prosecutions for failure-to-comply offenses. “Failure to comply” charges are the result of a missed deadline to reregister or update registration. Akin to technical parole violations, these are often hyper-technicalities that stem from the difficulty of following so many onerous reporting requirements, and have no reported correlation to public safety. Despite this, they contribute to jail and prison churn, risking increased transmission of the virus.
4. Suspend fees for registration. Economists are projecting 14%-20% GDP contraction for this quarter and unemployment in double-digit rates. Many people have already lost their incomes as a result of the shutdowns. People with past convictions are far more likely to be poor, with reduced job prospects. Non-payment of these fees can result in failure-to-comply charges; during this crisis registration fees should be suspended.
5. Suspend in-person address verifications. Routine police visits to the addresses of people listed on registries, for the sole purpose of an address check, should be suspended. These visits are widespread, and number in the tens of thousands. At a time when even 911 calls are under stress, law enforcement should be able to redirect their resources as needed.
6. Suspend Internet access restrictions. Some people who are on probation or parole are forbidden from accessing wide swaths of the Internet, and some states have laws limiting Internet access for people listed on a conviction registry. During this crisis, access to the Internet has become even more critical: nearly everyone must rely on Internet access for work, news, homeschooling, services, and family connections. Individual safety, as well as public health compliance, requires timely online access to crucial information about social and health services, as well as access to medical services that are moving online.
7. “Step down” people in civil commitment. More than 6,000 people are locked post-sentence in prison-like state civil commitment facilities, that pose the same coronavirus dangers to staff and detainees as jails and prisons. States should speed up “step-down” procedures and move people into supervised community settings.

CONCLUSION

State conviction registries were intended to be a tool for law enforcement officials and were limited in scope. In the past quarter century, legislators expanded these public databases and added hundreds of additional reporting requirements and other restrictions, including housing and public space banishment laws, and long-term confinement in civil commitment. Research shows that at least 95% of those arrested for a sexual offense have never had a previous sex offense conviction, while most people currently required to register are unlikely to be re-arrested for a sexual offense.  Rather than improve public safety, these regulations:

• Systematically displace people from housing and employment,
• Weaken the resilience of families and communities coping with crime and mass incarceration,
• Divert critical resources away from crime survivors and proven prevention strategies and expand them on regulating the few people who have already been held accountable and punished.

In contrast, public safety and crime reduction principles emphasize a public health approach to prevention, involving, among other things, primary prevention, focusing on the warning signs inside familial and social circles, and building early and comprehensive support and intervention for people, families, and communities most impacted by violence.

We urge policymakers to suspend rules and policies that are not essential to public safety or that contribute to the spread of COVID-19. These strategies allow law enforcement, on the frontlines of this catastrophe, to dedicate more of their limited resources toward crisis intervention and emergency assistance

Click here to read the entire article

The 84-year-old passed away three days ago at HMP Littlehey, in the village of Perry near Huntingdon in Cambridgeshire, England.

Prison officials have told news sources that the Covid-19 is thought only to have been detected after his death.

Littlehey, a low-level prison where its inmate population does not allow work release programs due to a majority of its people are incarcerated with sex offense crimes, has over 450 inmates. Most of them are male in shared cells. There is no word if other staff is infected. However, 19 inmates have tested positive for the virus within the UK prison system.

Several transport officers with the UK prison system have contracted the Covid-19 virus. No word on their condition and the potential affects of transmission to the prison population.

This is the first fatality in the United Kingdom that has gone public.

Being this is the first fatality, and in the United Kingdom, it should be a lessons learned moment for any nation that health care and public health measures in any prison system must be significantly improved and quick to respond to isolate outbreaks from spreading. Many advocates in the United States fear that such sympathy or equal access to health care will fall on deaf ears to improve public health conditions in prisons.

America will have to wait and see the final death toll in prisons, civil commitment facilities, and those affected by the sex offender registry living at home but enduring in-person mandatory appearances and home checks during a time of national crisis. Will our attitudes change after the Covid-19 has subsided? That assessment will be left up to public opinion and how advocates deal with after actions reviews.

A state lawmaker who sponsored the legislation says it’s the first time in Virginia where someone will be compensated for both their time behind bars and the time afterward when they were required to be on the sex offender registry.

“This was such an egregious act, unfathomable in my mind,” said Del. Chris Jones, (R) Suffolk, calling it the worst miscarriage of justice he has ever seen.

The case involved the July, 1997 rape and murder of Michelle Moore Bosko in her Norfolk apartment.

Sailors Danial Williams, Joseph Dick, and Derek Tice were convicted of rape and murder. Eric Wilson was convicted of rape.

Their DNA didn’t match the evidence. Their confessions were forced. The lead detective was corrupt.

Another man eventually confessed to the rape and murder and his DNA matched the evidence from the apartment.

None of it mattered.

Three of the Norfolk four got life sentences for rape and murder, and one got eight years for rape.

“I cannot imagine being in prison for that long and then being on the sex offender list knowing that you’re innocent,” Jones said, “and they knew you were innocent within two to three years of the murder.”

Wilson spent eight years in prison, the other three more than ten each.

The compensation legislation takes into account not only their time behind bars, but also their parole and the time they had to register as sex offenders.

Their payouts will come from the state, and the city of Norfolk must match them. The combined totals range from $1.8 million for Williams to $1.7 million for Tice.

“You can never compensate someone adequately for the time that they’ve lost,” Jones said.

Lost, in large part, because of corrupt police detective Robert Glenn Ford. Documents say he forced illegal confessions from the Norfolk Four.

When Omar Ballard confessed to the rape and murder and his DNA was a match – Ford told him he could avoid the death penalty by implicating the innocent sailors.

Ford was convicted of perjury and taking bribes and is now in federal prison.

The payouts for the Norfolk Four will begin in about 90 days. They will each get an initial payout of about $170,000, with the rest coming over time as an annuity.

Governor Terry McAuliffe gave the Norfolk Four absolute pardons a year ago. Their records are erased and they’re no longer on the sex offender registry.

The legislation requiring the compensation recognizes their “horrific experiences in prison, lost employment opportunities, and shattered relations with family and friends.”

Jones said the efforts of several people and agencies were instrumental in getting the legislation passed, including Norfolk Mayor Kenny Alexander, the office of Attorney General Mark Herring, the Innocence Project, and the law firms of Eckert Seamans, Troutman Sanders, Squire Paton & Boggs, Hogan Lovells and Skadden Arps who served pro bono.