A program grows beyond reason

Public sympathy may be in short supply for Virginia's thousands of registered sex offenders, but that shouldn't prevent state leaders from acting rationally and responsibly on matters related to public safety.

Such caution inspired the 2003 law to fund a civil commitment program aimed to keep the worst of the worst - offenders convicted of rape, forcible sodomy or aggravated sexual battery - from re-entering society if they were deemed a danger. Under the program, an offender who fulfilled his prison sentence can be committed indefinitely to a rehabilitation center if a psychiatrist determined he is likely to re-offend.

But that well-intended program has followed the path of so many other government programs and grown beyond its original intent. The list of crimes that make an offender eligible for civil commitment now stands at 28; the program's budget has ballooned from $2.7 million in 2004 to an estimated $24 million this year.

And, as The Associated Press reported, Gov. Bob McDonnell recently proposed spending $43.5 million to convert a former prison into another civil commitment facility.

As of Dec. 1, 239 of the 300 available beds at the state's civil commitment center in Burkeville were occupied, and officials expect it to reach capacity next year.

Some of the offenders shouldn't be there. They were committed only because they lacked a place to call home outside of prison.

The irony here is that state leaders are willing to designate hundreds of thousands of public dollars to indefinitely detain a homeless person who has served his sentence, but they're unwilling to set aside a fraction of that money to establish more halfway houses and community-based treatment programs that could give former offenders a shot at contributing again to society.

Those who've served their sentence shouldn't be locked up simply because they need a home.

The director of the state Office of Sexually Violent Predator Services estimated at least 25 offenders could be released if they were to get help finding a place to live.

The annual per-person cost of community-based treatment, he said, would be about $21,000. Civil commitment carries an average per-offender tab of about $100,000 per year. Ten offenders who were committed have been released since 2003, the AP reported. None committed new crimes.

The governor and state legislators should focus more sharply on restricting civil commitment to those a psychiatrist says pose the greatest risk to society, rather than continuing to funnel a growing stream of dollars into expanding government detention facilities.