In America, the concept of incarcerating undesirables just because they are undesirables, and because public emotions can easily be swayed against undesirables, goes against the basic concept of freedom upon which America was founded. It must never be forgotten that the only guarantee for one's own rights and freedoms is the concession of those same rights to one's neighbors. Loss of freedom for one group can be easily expanded to others unless everyone strives to protect the freedoms for all.

California's Little Hoover Commission released a report on November 13, 2003, calling the State's prison system a $5.2 billion a year failure. This coming from the State's watchdog group designed to review state government programs for cost-effectiveness. However, there is an even less cost effective program which has yet to come under public scrutiny--civil commitments--a billion dollar a year program that recent U.S. Department of Justice ("DOJ") statistics shows to be targeting the wrong group, and while doing so, eroding their civil rights and freedoms.

Several states are now using civil commitments to keep sex offenders incarcerated after they have completed their prison sentences rather than release them on parole. To appear tough on crime, politicians specifically target this most despised, hated, and undesirable group against which public emotions can easily be turned into anger with nothing more than a name--"sex offender." When they reach the end of their penal term, and are about to be released to supervised parole, they are instead civilly committed based on a crystal ball type prediction that they may possibly commit a crime at some obscure time in the future. No one complains, they are sex offenders. Instead we hear, "So be it!"

There is a public perception that sex offenders have a very high reoffense or recidivism rate. Apparently, this misconception is based on emotions and political rhetoric directed at the sex offender label rather than factual data, which recently supplied by the DOJ study showed sex offenders to have the lowest recidivism rate of all offender categories. Nevertheless, based on the hate of undesirables rhetoric, the taxpayers have been bilked into spending an approximate average of $290,000 per inmate biannually to civilly commit sex offenders rather than release them on parole. One data source provided a list of 85 names of individuals for whom the California Department of Mental Health ("DMH") "Experts" predicted would reoffend, but were nevertheless released by the courts.  Only four of the 85 are known to have reoffended, meaning that the DMH "Experts" predictions of the future were wrong 95% of the time. Even DMH "Experts" are insufficiently gifted so as to be able to accurately predict the future. Even those few in history considered to be so gifted, such as Nostradamos, have not been particularly accurate. Therefore, it doesn't seem right to civilly commit away anyone's freedom of liberty based on predictions of the future, predictions which have been 95% WRONG, just because the group is despised. An error rate worse than a chance guess.

Recent data has dispelled the previous perception that sex offenders have a high recidivism rate. In November of 2003, the U.S. Department of Justice ("DOJ"), Bureau of Justice Statistics ("BJS"), released a report, "Recidivism of Sex Offenders Released from Prison in 1994," NOJ198281. The report utilized date form 15 states, with California contributing 34% of the data base. A total of 272,111 men were tracked in the study, with 9,691 of them whose crime was a sex offense. The study results were astounding. The DOJ Report showed that released sex offenders were the least dangerous of all released prisoners--by far! The total recidivism form the 9,691 sex offenders was 517 (5.3%) who committed new sex crimes. Older sex offenders are even lower (3.3%), and they are the ones most often targeted for civil commitment. This number looks familiar, and means that 95% of them do not commit new sex offenses--hmm--isn't this interesting, 95% is the same percentage that did to reoffend after DMH "Experts" had predicted they would. Wrongly!

Even though released non-sex offenders had a lower percentage rate of sex offenses, due to their sheer numbers (262,420), with 3328 of them committing new sex offenses, the released non-sex offenders committed almost all of the new sex crimes--87%. While the released sex offenders (9,691) committed only (517) 13% of the new sex crimes.

The same holds true for all other crimes (non sex offenses). Non-sex offenders had double the overall recidivism rate (47.8%) compared to sex offender recidivism (24%) for non-sex offenses. The DOJ Report shows that new sex offenses are a small percentage (5.3%) of sex offender recidivism. Based on this new DOJ data, one can clearly conclude that the taxpayers are spending huge amounts of money targeting the least dangerous group for civil commitment. Have no fear, there are plans to target all prisoners--the non sex offenders who statistics now show are the most dangerous. But can the taxpayers afford this?

It was reported by a reliable source last summer, the Public Broadcasting System ("PBS") affiliate in Fresno, California, KVPT, aired a program reporting a group of district attorneys and deputy attorneys general are advocating further expansion of the civil commitment programs to include anybody and everybody who has served lengthy prison terms of ten years or more, or multiple prison terms, two or more. Claiming as justification that inmates who have spent ten or more years incarcerated are mentally ill equipped to successfully integrate back into society. That inmates are too out of touch to cope with society anymore. That inmates have little to no access to any meaningful educational or vocational training. Therefore, with such poor job skills, are likely to resort back to crime in order to financially and socially support themselves, etc., etc. . .

The Little Hoover Commission Report blasts the Department of Corrections ("CDC") and the California Correctional Peace Officers Association ("CCPOA"), the prison guards union--a special interest group, for causing the very same problems that were cited as justification for expanding civil commitment in the PBS report. The Commission called California's correctional system a $5.2 billion-a-year failure that does little to prepare inmates for freedom, a "revolving door" system that all but assures parolees will resume a life of crime. A "singular focus on punishment guarantees that upon release most offenders will be as ill equipped to be productive, law-abiding citizens as the day they entered prison."

The Commission also finds great fault with the parole system, calling it a billion dollar a year failure. As reported in last summer's PBS program, a group of the State's prosecutors have already proposed a solution: it appears they want to replace parole with civil commitment. As with everything--it's about the money. According to the commission, Experts say the guards and parole officers have a financial incentive to keep the number of inmates high, helping preserve their jobs and ensure high salaries. Whether its power is real or imagined, the corrections' officers union is considered to be the major stumbling block to reform in California.

The financial incentive trickles down far beyond the corrections' officers. A new civil commitment facility is being quietly constructed on the grounds of Pleasant Valley State Prison at Coalinga, California, a joint venture between the CDC and DMH, utilizing $350,000,000 from the fiscal year 2000-2001 State of California General Fund Budget, with other additional costs hidden here and there in various other budget categories.

Civil commitments have very high operating costs compared to prison incarceration. Prisons cost the taxpayers on average approximately $30,000 per inmate per year, while civil commitment costs average approximately $120,000 per inmate per year plus an additional biannual cost averaging $50,000 for commitment proceedings expenses.

The new facility has been in planning for years. On August 2, 2000, Nora R. Romero, Chief, Office of Community and Consumer Relations, issued a press release. This press release touted the construction of the new DMH facility to be located on land adjacent to an existing state prison to be a partnership between the state and the community of Coalinga, quoting Stephen Mayberg, Ph.D., Director of DMH, who stated, "The state is in a position to provide many new jobs and services that will significantly boost other sectors of the local economy."

Instead of releasing inmates to parole, the state plans to incarcerate them in a mental hospital through civil commitment. This at huge costs to the taxpayer in a deficit budget era, of other state jobs being cut, in what appears to be a huge welfare system benefitting the community of Coalinga through ancillary trickle-down to the community, guaranteed jobs for prison guards (CCPOA members), and jobs for DMH employees and contractors.

The press release continues stating there will be a hospital staff of approximately 2000 professional workers in addition to many other support jobs and, "Every possible effort will be made to employ local residents," said Mayberg, "The facility which will cost an estimated $365,000,000 to build, will have an annual operating budget of $100-150 million." There also will be funds for mitigation impact on local agencies for schools and public services. The DMH will administer the new hospital which, when completed, will be the largest in the state hospital system. The Department of Corrections will be in charge of security.

Throughout 2003, the walls have been going up for this new expensive facility. The state does not have the funds to provide rehabilitation programs in the prison setting at an approximate annual housing cost of $30,000 per inmate, but the state does have the funds to continue incarcerating these same inmates in a civil commitment facility at an annual cost averaging $145,000 per inmate. In the midst of a reported $40 billion state budget deficit, the political mind set in California has been to spend exorbitant amounts of money to lock-up people under civil commitment statutes based on what new DOJ statistics now show are erroneous and unreliable predictions of future recidivism.

Inmate Tom Watson
Shasta County Jail
1655 West Street
Redding, CA 96001