Va. lawmakers seek to shrink cost of confining sex offenders

RICHMOND

Concerned that the cost of Virginia’s long-term confinement of sex offenders is spiraling out of control, lawmakers are proposing some drastic measures to rein it in.

The General Assembly created the Sexually Violent Predator Program in 1998 to keep sex offenders deemed likely to reoffend locked up after they finish their criminal sentences. The process is known as civil commitment.

Now, legislators are worried they’ve created a budget-eating monster. The program’s annual operating cost is projected to hit $32 million next year – more than a tenfold increase in eight years.

A 300-bed treatment center completed two years ago for $62 million is expected to be filled by this fall.

To deal with the exponential growth, Gov. Bob McDonnell has asked for an infusion of $25 million in additional operating funds over the next two years plus $43.5 million in borrowed money to convert a closed prison in Brunswick County into a second 300-bed treatment center.

Budget writers in the House of Delegates are calling for a time out.

The revised 2010-12 state budget proposal adopted Thursday by the Republican-controlled House would slash the Republican governor’s requests.

Citing “grave concerns” about the program’s rapid growth, the House budget cuts the requested $25 million in operating funds to $14.3 million and eliminates the prison conversion project entirely. Instead, delegates propose selling the shuttered Brunswick prison for a quarter of its value as an economic development site.

In addition, they suggest double-bunking up to 150 beds at the existing treatment center in Nottoway County to increase its capacity and renting space in other states if necessary to confine excess offenders.

“We’re faced with a program that is exploding in potential numbers,” Del. Bob Brink, D-Arlington County, a member of the budget-writing House Appropriations Committee, said Thursday. “The committee, across the board, felt that we need to go back to the drawing board and determine the reasons.”

Del. Harvey Morgan, R-Gloucester County, another committee member, said lawmakers were shocked by the program’s annual operating cost, $91,000 per resident, and its staffing ratio, two staffers for every offender.

“I know we need to treat them if they’re treatable,” Morgan said. “But I don’t think we need to be spending twice as much as we were spending when they were in prison.”

The House budget calls for the administration to undertake a comprehensive review of the program and report back to the Assembly money committees later this year.

The number of offenders in the program has passed 250 and is growing at the rate of six to eight per month. Only 11 have been released.

One reason for the rapid growth, lawmakers were told last month, is that it takes only one offense from a list of 28 sex crimes to qualify an offender for continued confinement after completion of a criminal sentence. Most other states that have such programs require that an offender show a history or pattern of sexually dangerous behavior before becoming eligible for commitment.

Budget writers in the state Senate reluctantly agreed to McDonnell’s funding proposals for the program. House and Senate budget negotiators will iron out their differences later this month.