Interesting article in Sunday's NY Times on committment of sex offenders after completion of their prison sentences. For the article, click here. You may have to register on the site.

Of course, now that there is a national push to strengthen sex offender laws, the NY Times has decided it is time to show the expense of holding such offenders. Not counted in the cost is the additional social cost that would come from letting them roam free. What is the value of saving children from rape? Perhaps the NY Times would like to include an estimate in their article next time.

Also, notice that Texas is the only state that does not confine sex offenders under their civil committment law. Texas continues to require the "patient" to submit to outpatient treatment and electronic monitoring. A form of civil community supervision, if you will. Texas also has the unique status (not mentioned in the article) of making it a new crime for the patient to violate the conditions of the supervision.

That makes Texas' costs go much lower than those states with inpatient confinement and treatment. Substantially lower. Might even be lower if you consider how much patients in Texas must pay for their own treatment.

The decision to do outpatient treatment in Texas was, frankly, a political decision based on the extraordinary costs associated with building a confinement/treatment facility just for civil committment. It actually seems to be working fairly well and avoids some of the sticky constitutional issues associated with longtime confinement after discharge of a sentence.

The headline of the article reveals a typical weakness on the part of media. The article must have a audience-drawing point of view. It would be far too simple to just give the public the information and let them decide for themselves whether it works. So, the headline beings with "doubts" about these laws. That makes the story seem to support the premise that this was all a terrible idea inevitably headed for collapse.

Of course, the story does nothing to describe the alternative: releasing the worst of the worst with no supervision whatsoever.