A noteworthy trial gets underway in DuPage County this week. It involves the first priest the state seeks to confine involuntarily and indefinitely under the Sexually Violent Persons Commitment Act. What do you think of this law? Is this a necessary tool to protect people from violent sex offenders who are highly likely to hurt more people if they had their freedom? Or does this test our constitution, since offenders who have served their criminal sentences are kept against their will for simply posing a risk of committing another crime?
The case involves the Rev. Fred Lenczycki, who remains a priest of the Joliet Diocese, even though he was convicted in 2002 of molesting Hinsdale altar boys.
Several hundred people are confined through the program at an Illinois Department of Human Services facility in Rushville.
Prosecutors argue that Lenczycki, 63, is a habitual offender who is likely to harm children again if he was released. Lenczycki's defense attorneys argue that his behavior has changed and he is not a risk.
What do you think should happen? Should this man who was ordained in Naperville in 1972 go free, or remain confined?
Sexually violent offenders cannot be rehabilitated. Countless psychological studies have been done to that effect and have drawn that same conclusion. A person with mulitple violent sex offenses should be separated from society permanantly, either through imprisonment or death. Period.
The State should have executed him a long time ago. If you're over 25 years old and more than one witness plus DNA proves you raped a teenager or a little kid...you die. As a tax payer, I'm tired of hearing about overcrowded prisons and early relief. I'm not interested in paying for their 3 meals a day, haircuts, razor blades, hot showers, socks and underwear while they supposedly rehabilitate and plan their 2nd, 3rd and 4th appeal on my dime.
After a romantic weekend with the silverback gorilla at the zoo (even-Steven, eye for an eye) we publicly stone your twisted, poor excuse of a human being in front of your family while they sing "do unto others as you would have them do unto you." Now we'll see who wants to be naughty or nice!
As a parent I don't want people like this free at all. However, I question whether this is the best way to go about keeping this person incarcerated forever. Surely this is supposed to be psychiatric help, but the intent is really incarceration.
The US Dept of Justice reports that “Of the 272,111 persons released from prisons in 15 States in 1994, an estimated 67.5% were rearrested for a felony or serious misdemeanor within 3 years, 46.9% were reconvicted, and 25.4% resentenced to prison for a new crime. The 272,111 offenders discharged in 1994 accounted for nearly 4,877,000 arrest charges over their recorded careers.” The report also went on to say that sex offenders were less likely to re-arrested after their release; however, if they were rearrested it was more likely to be for another sex crime.
Source: http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/crimoff.htm#recidivism
How far down this slippery slope do we go? At what point is someone going to point to the numbers above and suggest re-incarcerating criminals who have already served their time under the guise that they were not rehabilitated enough and still pose a threat to society?
I don't have an answer for this, but I believe the laws should be changed to allow these offenders to get jail sentences of life without the possibility of parole. That would negate the current issue going on now. If you lock them up from the start, you never need to worry about their release later.
T.B.
I must be an odd ball because I firmly believe the US CONSTITUTION is the law of the land. The fifth ammendment states "nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb", furhtermore the start of the ammendment states "No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury". Looks like anyone held this way has a federal case. The first ten ammendments to the constitution are our Bill or Rights, for us to have these rights we have to live with both the good and the bad, as this individual is but we cannot just lock him up and throw away the key just because we think he might do something wrong. Until we change the laws that state lock them up for life, when convicted, this action is wrong!
Anon@1:27 has a very valid point that I agree with.
As much as you feel in your gut that someone's going to do something again, it is the law of punishment that has to prevent the possibility of another repeat offense. That law of punishment is only applied when convicted of a crime not because you THINK someone is going to commit a crime.
Here's my two cents: Violent sex offenders confined through this program are described as the "worst of the worst," the ones society would raise an uproar about if the convicted criminals were released and committed sex crimes again. ("How could they let him out?!") There's probably good reason to keep these guys off the streets.
Having said that, though, this law bothers me. The state calls them "detainees," not prisoners (sounds like Guantanamo Bay), and they're "confined," not imprisoned. They're in a treatment facility, though the ACLU has claimed in a suit that the detainees actually receive little to no counseling. I understand courts have upheld the constitutionality of these laws, but I'm still bothered by them. You're detained because of a crime you might commit in the future. Sounds like some sort of Big Brother science fiction nightmare, not the USA.
I think it would be better to toughen penalties and increase the length of sentences for those who actually commit sexually violent crimes, and improve existing parole and probation systems to monitor sex offenders who are released after serving sentences for crimes which they have committed.
I don't know about confining someone involuntarily and indefinitely, but your paper today also had a story about a 33 year-old Bolingbrook man who is out on bail after ADMITTING having molested a 10 year-old girl several times. Why is this man still walking the streets?
I think anyone that hurts a child should be killed or locked up for the rest of there life!honestly i would rather see them die then spend my hard earned tax money on them! If you hurt a child in my eyes you have no constitutional rights! and if anyone ever hurts my children I AM THE JUDGE AND JURY AND EXECUTIONOR and i will not have any regard for the law what so ever!!!!!!!
What disturbs me the most is that the government is acting more and more like a private organization... passing laws that government employees want out of the sphere of approval by "We the People"... and less and less like a free and democratic government accountable to "We the People".
Yes, we have troubling issues. However, what is most important in a free and democratic society is that "We the People" have a voice in our laws.
I'm not sure or even partially convinced that the fathers of our country ever envisioned some of the sickness, degenerate, and sociopathic ills that plague our society today. For that reason I'm not terribly comfortable hearing a bunch of senile jurists tell us these laws pass a test of constitutionality.
Abuse of power. Corruption. Pay to play. Graft. Indictment. Conviction. Resignation. Impeachment. Pardon. These are all words and phrases used way, way too commonly to describe the political culture at every level in the United States. Human Rights violations used to be something Americans could hold their heads high and proud and point an accusing finger at certain other countries. As a direct result of the Iraq war and what has happened since we have allowed our government to destroy our reputation, our credibility, and our ability to be a positive role model with the rest of the world.
Maybe it is simply time for another Constitutional Congress? The first one seemed to serve us well enough for the first 100 to 150 years or so. For the last several decades it has become more and more apparent, to me at least, that, as good as it may be, it may be time to update our Constitution to reflect the current needs and wants of "We the People" and our society in general.