Posting #106 – Virginia Crime Commission’s May 11 & June 25, 2009 Meetings and Power Point Presentations

Date:  06/25/2009

At the May 11, 2009 VCC meeting in Richmond Delegate Morgan Griffith (Majority Leader) said to the panel "when we passed the Sexually Violent Predator Act we never thought ANYONE would ever be released form the Virginia Center for Behavioral Rehabilitation”

Many of the residents of Virginia Center for Behavioral Rehabilitation entered the facility willingly because the state of Virginia told them they'd be released if they completed their treatment. After all this "treatment" is not supposed to be punitive otherwise Civil Commitment would be Unconstitutional.

At the June 25, 2009 VCC meeting in Richmond they covered three topics that the RSOL of Virginia was very interested in. Criminal Culpability Transfer and the Teen Brain, Juvenile's Convicted in Circuit Court and Sexually Violent Predator Act and Static-99 Screening.

We were please to hear a leading scientists advise the Crime Commission that a teenagers brain is not fully developed (until 25-31 years old) and thus should not be charged as an adult or in our views not be allowed to file an accusation alone to convict someone. Then we learned 75% of Virginia teens are being charged as adults in Virginia today and serve an average 2.5 year prison sentence. Also in the Virginia statistics under types of crimes they list a juvenile consensual sex conviction as "rape" instead of "other sex offense" which seriously skews the statistics.

Finally on the Civil commitment and the Static 99 assessment tool we were please to see serious questions being raised about the cost, the recidivism rates that they thought were true when they originally passed the Act in 2003, that only 20 states have civil commitment laws and what the questions are on the Static 99. Today a score of “4” or “5” will land someone in the Virginia Center for Behavioral Rehabilitation but they are considering taking the score of 3 and having those people evaluated much more thoroughly than they do today because they are worried that some "3's" shouldn't have been allowed out, even though there have been no specific cases of a "3" not being locked up and recidivating. A “4” has a 29% of recidivating (re-offending) and a “5” has 33.4% of recidivating ANY TYPE OF CRIME in a 5 year period. The percentage would be much lower if the Virginia AG’s office was only measuring “Sexual Crimes” and ALL OTHER recidivism rates are based on a 3 year period, so raising it to 5 years skews the perception of danger.

On the 10 question Static 99 evaluation test a college aged, homosexual male, who has not lived/shacked up with a “partner” for 2 or more years need only to have a reckless driving mis-demeanor conviction and he is currently just 1 point away (4 points) from being deemed a serious threat to society and needs to be locked away for life in an insane asylum for the “Sexually Perverse”. This is insane!

It costs more than $130,000 per resident per year for the residents of the VCBR compared to $26,000 per inmate per year for prison. Currently there are 151 residents and VCBR is admitting 5.5 new residents per month and will run out of beds in 2012! So a new facility is planned to be built. We were appalled by this 5.5 per month number.

The September VCC meeting will cover all the S.O. Bills that were NOT passed in the 2009 General Assembly. http://www.rsolvirginia.org/crimecommission.html

 VCC 2009 Microsoft Power Point Presentations:

• Adolescent Brain Development

• Juveniles Convicted in Circuit Court

• Sexually Violent Predator Act and the Static 99 Screening

• Office of the Attorney General-Sexually Violent Predator Presentation

(For more information on Civil Commitment , the VCBR and the Static 99 see Postings #60, #67, #107 and #108)