Sentences for Sex Criminals

Abstract

The indeterminate sentence is one of the numerous nostrums that some criminological theorists have recommended from time to time over the past century as a method to resolve the problems of criminal treatment. The principle has been rejected by practical penology in its idealized form of the open-ended sentence, except for psychotic and feeble-minded offenders-types that are rather clearly problems of medical treatment and long-term custody. For other criminals the wholly indeterminate sentence has appeared an inappropriate correctional device, not merely because of the reluctance of the bench to relinquish its control over disposition of the offender but, more especially, because of the grave dangers of injustice. In clinical theory it is highly desirable to retain the delinquent in custody until-and only until-the causes of his behavior are resolved so that he can return to the community rehabilitated and no longer dangerous. Our ability, however, to apply this theory to good effect must depend upon a combination of skills: to discover the causes of the delinquency, to apply effective treatment methods according to the requirements of the particular offender, to secure the necessary personnel and other resources for treatment, and-most of all, in the interest of justiceadequate criteria for release. Until now we have lacked the knowledge, techniques and personnel to attempt this wholly clinical, positivistic approach to the criminal. With good reason we have feared that in actual practice we should err frequently in both directions of releasing too soon individuals who are a serious danger to the community and in retaining too long others whose threat to security is small, whose rehabilitation is difficult or impossible to determine while they are confined in an abnormal institutional environment. The reality of these dangers has been attested often enough in our handling of the defective and insane. As a consequence we have preferred the compromise of partially indefinite sentences in which minimum and maximum terms are fixed, with the time of release determined by a paroling agency. This method is not wholly satisfactory for various reasons, and it is subject to unjust distinctions that come out of the fallibility of human decisions on treatment and release. It has represented, however, a rather ingenious compromise of our objectives in the treatment of the