Citation

Palermo GB. Int. J. Offender Ther. Comp. Criminol. 2009; 53(4): 371-372.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2009, SAGE Publishing)

DOI

10.1177/0306624X09339376

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

The constitutionality of the sexual predator law has been recognized by the United States Supreme Court. Nevertheless, the law in question has been criticized by many forensic psychiatric and legal scholars as being basically a form of preventive detention in answer to the possibility of recidivism by sex offenders and to allay community fears (Palermo & Farkas, 2001). The law, as I have written before, empowers those states that have enacted it to civilly commit sexual offenders at the termination of their legal sentences for an indefinite period of treatment because, owing to a mental disorder, they have been found more likely than not to reoffend.