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APA Praises Comstock Ruling, Criticizes Civil Commitment

By Corey Rayburnyung

We previously blogged about U.S. v. Comstock (opinion here), where the 4th Circuit struck down a provision of the Adam Walsh allowing the indefinite civil commitment of "sexually dangerous" persons.  The American Psychiatric Association has now issued its response to Comstock in this interesting article:The federal appeals court ruling will have a limited impact because many such prisoners will simply be transferred to state control, said forensic psychiatrist Paul Appelbaum, M.D., a member of APA's Council on Psychiatry and Law, in an interview with Psychiatric News. The only individuals likely to be affected are people held on federal sex crime charges in states without civil-commitment statutes, he said.APA's Committee on Persons With Mental Illness in the Criminal Justice System provided a written statement on the court ruling to Psychiatric News that described civil commitment for sexual offenders as "incarceration under the guise of treatment...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sex Crimes on March 06, 2009 (boomark / email).