Jordan Michael Smith at Harper’s Magazine:
On Taisa Carvalho Mick’s first day as a psychotherapist with Larned State Hospital’s Sexual Predator Treatment Program (SPTP), her co-workers warned her to be careful around her patients. She shouldn’t get close to them or believe a word they said, other staffers told her. They were untrustworthy predators, liable to manipulate her—or worse. Mick was suprised. She didn’t hear anything about empathy or treating patients with respect, even though the ostensible goal of the program was to provide therapy.
Larned, Kansas, is a city of 3,700 people surrounded by wheat fields and cattle farms. Like nineteen other states, the District of Columbia, and the federal government, Kansas detains many former inmates convicted of sex offenses after they finish serving their criminal sentences. They remain confined in treatment facilities until an evaluator deems them unlikely to reoffend and a judge agrees to their release. Supporters of this practice, which is called civil commitment, defend it as a form of medical treatment necessary for public safety. The handbook provided to those detained at Larned puts it this way: “It is the vision of the SPTP to provide residents with the knowledge and tools needed for their reintegration back into society.”
more here.
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