TY  - JOUR
PY  - 2009//
TI  - Sexual Predator Law or Preventive Detention? Call It for What It Is
JO  - International journal of offender therapy and comparative criminology
A1  - Palermo, G. B.
SP  - 371
EP  - 372
VL  - 53
IS  - 4
N2  - 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.<p />
LA  - 
SN  - 0306-624X
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0306624X09339376
ID  - ref1
ER  -