Sex Offenses - Sexual Psychopath Legislation

Approximately 20 states have statutes that address dangerous sex offenders and sexual psychopaths. These statutes are designed to protect public safety by removing habitual sex offenders from society for extended periods of time. Criminal defendants treated differently from others based on their classification as sexual psychopaths have challenged these laws, arguing that they violate the Equal Protection and the Due Process Clauses, but the laws have withstood such challenges (Kansas v Hendricks, 521 U.S. 346 [1997]; Seling v. Young, 531 U.S. 250 [2001]).

These statutes require that the court must specifically find that the sex offender suffers from mental illness that leads to sexually deviant behavior, and that the behavior is likely to continue in the future, in order to classify the offender as a sexual psychopath. These statutes also permit the state to retain custody of the sexual psychopath, or sexually dangerous person, until he or she is cured of the mental illness. In effect, this allows the state to impose an indeterminate, and often lifetime, sentence.