Changes overdue in civil commitment

Anyone familiar with Virginia's civil commitment program for violent sex offenders shouldn't have been surprised when two residents took to the state facility's roof last week to protest the conditions.

The two men, consigned indefinitely to the Virginia Center for Behavioral Rehabilitation in Burkeville after completing their criminal sentences, fashioned nooses out of bedsheets and threatened to hang themselves unless authorities investigated their claims that treatment is being curtailed and that the facility is turning into a de facto prison.

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that civil commitment programs such as Virginia's are constitutional only if residents are there for treatment and not for more punishment.

Virginia's program offers such treatment, but the demand has grown exponentially since 2003, when the first sexually violent offender was committed. The Burkeville facility has 300 beds, and authorities recently began double-bunking to expand capacity.

A few weeks before the rooftop standoff, Virginia's Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission noted that many of the problems plaguing the program - crowding, soaring expenses and a flawed system for evaluating offenders - were the result of legislators' decision in 2006 to micromanage its operation.

As a result, the program - designed to protect the public from, and offer treatment to, society's most dangerous predators - appears to be in trouble.

Staff members are required under a 2006 state law to use a specific risk assessment to determine whether a sex offender should be considered for commitment to Burke-ville. That assessment, however, is both outdated and prone to overestimating the risk of reoffending, according to the JLARC review.

The law also provides no leeway for evaluators to consider factors beyond an offender's score when it comes to evaluating whether they should be reviewed for civil commitment.

The significance of that flaw was underscored when, according to Justin Brown, who led JLARC's study, a man nearing the end of his criminal sentence admitted plans to reoffend but didn't score high enough on the state's actuarial assessment to warrant civil commitment. He walked free.

This year, Virginia's civil commitment program is projected to cost about $32.5 million - an increase of nearly 460 percent in just seven years.

The population in Virginia's civil commitment program is expected to more than double - and exceed 600 - by 2016. If lawmakers fail to make any changes, that growth rate will continue, as will the potential for Virginia to run afoul of constitutional protections.

Changes, clearly, are overdue.

Few issues will likely come before the General Assembly in the upcoming year in which nearly every member, Republican or Democrat or independent, can agree. Reforming the civil commitment program to fulfill its original intent should be one.