Alternatives for worst offenders

The civil commitment program that keeps Virginia's worst sex offenders locked up indefinitely has grown so much that officials are desperate for a way to maintain it without spending millions more taxpayer dollars on it.

The program, first funded by a 2003 law, has seen its budget soar from $2.7 million in 2004 to $24 million this year. It costs nearly $100,000 each year to treat just one offender committed to the program at the Virginia Center for Behavioral Rehabilitation in Burkeville.

This year, lawmakers rejected Gov. Bob McDonnell's request for an additional $70 million over the next two years, including $43 million to convert a shuttered prison into another civil commitment facility.

A more politically palatable remedy is now being weighed.

The GEO Group runs Virginia's only private prison, the medium-security Lawrenceville Correctional Center. Its subsidiary, GEO Care, runs Florida's civil commitment program, the only one in the country - so far - to be privatized.

A spokesman for GEO Care told The Associated Press that the company could offer value "by providing quality services while achieving meaningful savings for Virginia's taxpayers." The company's proposal calls for doubling the number of beds at the Burkeville facility and increasing residents' treatment.

Of course, Virginia officials could just as easily realize significant savings themselves if they were willing to reconsider what has led them to this point: the current, unsustainable rate of growth that defines the civil commitment program.

When it was first funded, Virginia's program was reserved for the very worst sex offenders: those convicted of rape, forcible sodomy, aggravated sexual battery. Today, there are 28 crimes that make an offender eligible for civil commitment.

Burkeville, which opened about three years ago, is already near its 300-person capacity. Rumblings of plans to start double-bunking prisoners has led some to threaten to sue the state.

It is the only Virginia institution for sex offenders who've completed their prison terms but have been deemed too likely to commit another crime to be released back into society.

Some have been committed simply because they lack a place to live. Only 10 have been released since the program's inception.

Getting back to the law's purpose - protecting society from the absolute worst of the worst - would be a good start toward reining in the cost of the program. Providing more offenders with community-based treatment, where per-offender costs are estimated at about a fifth of the cost at Burkeville, would help, too.

Both would represent responsible efforts to address the root of the problem. Putting the current program into the hands of a private company, where it could continue to grow, would not.