Issue: While the state should take steps to prevent sexual offenses from taking place and treat those who offend so that they will not offend again, efforts to place such offenders into psychiatric centers after their release from the criminal justice system is a misuse of the state’s mental health system. Such proposals would create huge safety risks for existing psychiatric center patients, sap desperately needed resources from mental health treatment and services in future years, and further stigmatize those attempting to recover from mental illness.

Action: 1) Lengthen prison sentences for those who commit the most heinous sexual offenses; 2) Invest in sexual abuse prevention and sexual offender treatment programs to curb the overall rate of sexual offenses, not just to address repeat offenders; 3) If the state is to pursue the post-incarceration confinement of sexual offenders, it should be done outside of the state’s mental health system.