What to do about sex offenders

Prison sentences, no matter how lengthy, can't cure sexual predators. But neither has it been proved that castration works.
Virginia lawmakers who think castration is a simple solution to a complex problem should remember that even armless thieves can steal.

Lawmakers are worried, and rightly so, that if the worst of the worst -- serial rapists and violent child molesters -- are released into society they will again prey upon unsuspecting victims.

The challenge then is to find an acceptable remedy that protects the public from mentally defective criminals who can't keep from re-offending. Lawmakers thought they had this figured out with civil commitments. Rather than release sexually violent offenders after they've served out their sentence, those judged likely to re-offend are locked away on civil confinements.

But this tidy solution has two major glitches. First, civil commitments can't go on indefinitely, as treatment and rehabilitation are still the goals. Second, the cost is steep. Sen. Emmett Hanger told The Washington Post that the program will soon cost $50 million a year.

Last year, lawmakers began searching for more answers. They tip-toed around the topic of castration. This year Hanger wrote it into a bill that would have allowed sexually violent predators to opt for castration and reintegration into society rather than risk a lifetime lockup. By the time the Senate and the House got through amending the bill, it was boiled down to a directive that the attorney general study the feasibility of using physical castration as a treatment option.

Gov. Tim Kaine struck the term "physical castration" and broadened the study to look at a "full range of treatment options." Kaine reasoned that the "bill was overly prescriptive of matters best left to the professionals in our state mental health agency."

The Senate agreed; the House didn't. This doesn't mean, though, that the castration debate is over. Kaine is asking his top mental health officials to review options for sex offender treatment, and lawmakers will surely revisit it next year.

Hanger believes that giving offenders the option of castration would be more humane than locking them away for life, and it would cost Virginia far less money.

However, the question remains as to whether castration would prevent violent offenders from committing other crimes. It has yet to be proved that either surgical or chemical castration is effective.

The governor and lawmakers would do well to use the next few months to call together experts in sexual disorders and mental health to explore all options rather than to assume castration provides an answer.

Sex Offenders Beg For Cash

Is Lifers Union Advocacy Group (http://www.lifersunion.org/) just a front organization for sex predators housed at the McNeil Island Special Commitment Center?
Lifers Union Advocacy Group (LUAG) states:
Lifers Union Advocacy Group (LUAG) is organized exclusively for charitable, educational, and literary purposes, Lifers Union Advocacy Group is organized for the purposes of sponsoring and contributing to activists and/or organizations working toward the betterment in family and otherwise social contacts for individuals incarcerated in prisons and/or mental hospitals nationwide;
This is from the web-page of the group and this is from the web-page of DSHS which keeps this group off the streets:
The Special Commitment Center Program, operated by the Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS), provides a specialized mental health treatment program for civilly committed sex offenders who have completed their prison sentences.
The civil commitment process is under the authority of the superior court in the county where an individual was previously convicted of sex crimes. Only sex offenders whom the court finds to meet the legal definition of a sexually violent predator may be civilly committed to the Special Commitment Center (SCC).
Public safety is the central purpose of the Community Protection Act of 1990. In each of its facilities, the Special Commitment Center Program employs a variety of stringent public safety and security measures to provide for the community's safety.

Yes, the men who operate Lifers Union Advocacy Group are sexually violent predators, the worst of the worst, men like Kevin Coe, the South Hill Rapist, Richard Roy Scott the untreated child rapists, Joel S. Reimer child raper who, if released in the morning would be raping before night fall.
How is it that this group is allowed to use the internet to continue their sex offending ways? The men who run this group are strong-arming weaker inmates, forcing them to give up monies for their personal cause.
The members of Lifers Union Advocacy Group are nothing more then sex predators using the net to offend. Joel S. Reimer aka Jayzack j.s.White Crow-reimer, a man so sick he has been locked away for the last 17 years still finds time to abuse other less able inmates. This rapist is the leader of the newsletter, and must be stopped.