Posting #67 – The Virginia Center for Behavioral Rehabilitation, by Corey

By: Corey
Date:  04/15/2009

RSOL of Virginia,

I am a resident of the Virginia Center for Behavioral Rehabilitation (VCBR). I feel the public is not being told the whole truth about the individuals being civilly committed for non-violent crimes.

The nature of my sex crime and other individual’s sex crimes are not categorized as being heinous. As you read further into this letter, you will discover the Attorney General is not only committing people who are the “worst of the worst” but also those who have substance abuse and behavioral problems. I would like to think the public would not be so quick to fund this place if they truly knew that people were being committed for non-violent sex crimes, behavior problems and substance abuse issues.

The article in the Richmond Times Dispatch from February 2009 is correct when it comes to the treatment here. There are only 3 Licensed Sex Offender Therapists and NO Licensed Substance Abuse Counselors here. We have staff members who are counseling under another’s license. These “unlicensed” staff members are still going through school and are enrolled in training seminars. The question concerning this issue is “why are we (the residents) receiving treatment from non-licensed counselors when we are supposed to be receiving the most intensive treatment possible?”

They cancel classes more than they have them. We are always having different counselors substituting for one another. This results in the substitute not knowing what the topic was the day before. The facility is poorly run and the communication between staff members is poor. Certain therapists spend hours of their day playing foosball, flag football, volleyball and basketball, How is that putting your and other tax-payers money to good use???

Eighty-five percent of the residents here are homosexuals. While I do not have anything against homosexuals, most of the treatment topics consist of productive gay relationships and why it’s inappropriate to engage in sexual behavior while at VCBR. How is this doing me or any other heterosexual ant good???

The public is lead to believe we are all here because we have committed sex crimes “over and over again”. However this is simply not true for every single resident here. When the law was passed it concerned labeling on a Sexually Violent Predator”. It was intended to target the “worst of the worst” (i.e. rapists, child molesters and those with repeated incarcerations for sex crimes) Virginia has gone above and beyond to try and fill this facility up as quickly as possible. The more people here the less it costs per resident per year. Where is the justice? When individuals such as me are being “rolled up in the same ball of wax” and labeled as someone who has committed a heinous sex crime or repeat sex crimes. Let the public have a say in whether a person with a non-violent sex offense, such as carnal knowledge, sexual battery, marital sexual assault, crimes against nature (sodomy), etc. should be put through the civil commitment process which is not cheap AND be labeled a Sexually Violent Predator.

VCBR requires the residents to take a polygraph test which results are used against us whether we pass them or not when we go back to court for our “annual review”. As you may know, polygraphs are inconclusive especially when one becomes nervous.

The Virginia Supreme Court has not wavered in it’s rulings concerning the inadmissibility of polygraph examination results. In a long line of cases, spanning almost 30 years the Supreme Court has made that polygraph examinations are so thoroughly unreliable as to be of no proper evidentiary use whether they favor the accused, implicate the accused or are agreed to by both parties. They make us take the test 3 times in one session to see if the results change any. If we refuse to take the test then they will use our refusal in court stating we have more victims and we are trying to hide them. It’s a Catch 22. We are damned if we do and damned if we don’t.

Here’s an interesting question: If we are such “Sexually Violent Predators” then, why haven’t any staff members here been sexually assaulted in the past six years since VCBR has been open? Are we truly what they say we are? Do we truly need to be civilly committed?

Sincerely,
Corey