|
|
Forum: Polls
Thread (Discussion): Poll 1033 - Should civil commitment be an option to keep a sex offender locked up after the inmate h
Message 122304
Introduction
Posted by admin
on Nov 25, 2003 08:58 AM | Also by admin
| Gender: N/A,
Age Bracket: N/A,
State: N/A,
Country: N/A |
Discuss Poll 1033 - Should civil commitment be an option to keep a sex offender locked up after the inmate has finished serving his/her
sentence if the offender is not found to have a mental illness?
Forum Home
| Top of Thread
Message 122317 (In Reply to Message 122304)
Posted by orolan
on Nov 25, 2003 03:52 PM | Also by orolan
| Gender: Male,
Age Bracket: N/A,
State: N/A,
Country: United States |
The "yes" choices in the poll, offering degrees of probable future action as determined by psychiatrists, is not the same as "found to have a mental illness".
I would prefer criteria involving actual offenses, ie:
Yes, if the offender has been convicted of multiple violent offenses against multiple victims at different times.
Yes, if the offender has been convicted of a penetration offense against a child under age 12.
Etc, etc.
Just an opinion.
Forum Home
| Top of Thread | Jump To Parent (122304)
Message 122329 (In Reply to Message 122317)
Posted by steve
on Nov 25, 2003 05:45 PM | Also by steve
| Gender: Male,
Age Bracket: N/A,
State: Virginia,
Country: United States |
Maybe the poll wording isn't clear. The "if the offender is not found to have a mental illness?" is included to differentiate between offenders found to have a mental illness and those who aren't. Commitment of those NOT found to have a mental illness is relatively new in the US and has only been instituted by law in some states. Those found not to have a mental illness are the only offenders that should be considered when answering this poll. Does that make sense?
Since there are 0 votes so far I'm definitely willing to consider editing the poll, but since this poll was listed for a week before it went live and that's my plan for most polls in the future I hope that regular users will take the time to look at polls prior to them going live and give feedback then b/c once a poll goes live I'm less inclined to muck with it.
> I would prefer criteria involving actual offenses
The reason I chose to make the choices based on what psychiatrists believe is that that's pretty much how civil commitment of sex offenders works in states that have legislated it. However there isn't universal agreement on how high-risk an offender must be in order to be civilly committed. So that is the issue with this particular poll.
Please understand that I have to balance the wordiness of a poll question, number of choices and wordiness of choices with the attention span and comprehension of the average user. Ideally I would have broken down "sex crimes" by type, defined everything in the poll and used more words, but then people tend to ignore the poll or answer without understanding it in full.
I'd definitely consider running a variation of this poll in the future based on convictions, but that's really a different poll entirely. Please post to this thread in the Off Topic forum so it can be discussed and I can find it when it comes time to add new polls.
Forum Home
| Top of Thread | Jump To Parent (122317)
Message 122607 (In Reply to Message 122329)
Posted by orolan
on Dec 02, 2003 06:18 PM | Also by orolan
| Gender: Male,
Age Bracket: N/A,
State: N/A,
Country: United States |
I understand. I'll go ahead and put a post in the off-topic thread addressing the issue, and we'll debate further.
Forum Home
| Top of Thread | Jump To Parent (122329)
Thread
122304, admin, Nov 25, 2003 08:58 AM [Introduction]
122317, orolan, Nov 25, 2003 03:52 PM
122329, steve, Nov 25, 2003 05:45 PM
122607, orolan, Dec 02, 2003 06:18 PM
Forum Home
| Top of Thread
|
|
|
