YALE UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF MEDICINE
100 CHURCH ST. SOUTH
SUITE 212
P.O. BOX 7612
NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT 06519-0612
203 785-5824
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Karen Peart
Helaine Patterson
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
YALE PHYSICIAN FORESEES OVERBURDENED PSYCHIATRIC SYSTEM AS SEX OFFENDERS QUALIFY FOR CIVIL COMMITMENT
NEW HAVEN, Conn., Nov. 13, 1997-When convicted sex offenders finish serving jail time, many of them might not be released back into society. Instead, those who fit the U.S. Supreme Court's profile of "sexually violent predators" could be immediately committed to hospitals for psychiatric care. Howard V. Zonana, M.D., professor of psychiatry at Yale University School of Medicine and clinical lecturer at Yale Law School, believes this legislation will drain a psychiatric system that is already strapped for funds.
"Society certainly has a right to be protected from sexual violence," says Dr. Zonana, who chairs the American Psychiatric Association's Task Force on Sexually Dangerous Offenders. "But I am also concerned with the enormous cost and the impact on the quality of care it will have on patients with severe incapacitating mental illnesses whose ability to survive in the community requires extensive resources."
According to Dr. Zonana, whose views are expressed in the Nov. 14 issue of the journal Science, treatment for sex offenders requires maximum-security facilities that are not usually found in hospital settings. Annual cost estimates range from $60,000 to $130,000 per patient.
"In the first year that Kansas enforced this legislation," says Dr. Zonana, "13 pedophiles were civilly committed at a cost of $1 million. This issue also raises tough questions such as what mental illnesses or conditions are sufficient to meet the sexually violent predator requirement."
For decades, the U.S. legal system has struggled with the decision of where to place sex offenders. According to Dr. Zonana, a shift in sentencing practices in the 1980s resulted in relatively shorter sentences for sex offenders. When some sex offenders repeated their crimes, several states enacted new statutes that permitted state officials to civilly commit offenders who met the criteria of "sexual predator." The Supreme Court upheld these statutes as constitutional this June when it ruled that sex offenders who have been found to be "sexually violent predators" can be hospitalized after, and only after they have served their entire criminal sentence.
Dr. Zonana is concerned that these statutes provide a very low threshold for people to be determined mentally ill. The decision makes it possible for sex offenders to be hospitalized based on remote past behavior and any mental abnormality or personality disorder that makes them unable to control their predatory behavior.
"This law is so broadly drawn that rapists who display anti-social behavior or traits could be hospitalized," says Dr. Zonana. "The problem is that this is transforming criminal behavior into mental illness, further stigmatizing the mentally ill and serving a primary function of preventive detention. If sex offenders are unable to control their behavior, they should be given longer prison terms and those who need treatment should have it available before the end of their criminal sentence."
Dr. Zonana has been a member of the Yale faculty since 1968 and chairs the Bioethics Committee of Yale-New Haven Hospital. He is also medical director of the Connecticut Mental Health Center, a collaborative program of the Connecticut Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services and the Yale University School of Medicine.
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