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Sex Offender Civil Commitment Exposed

Medium distant photograph of the Virginia Center for Behavioral Rehabilitation (VCBR) in Burkeville, Virginia. This is Virginia's Shadow Prison. The image shows brown grass in the foreground, with an institutional prison-like building behinds a tall double razor wire fence that wraps over into the compound for the shadow prison, similar to the fence use to contain velociraptors in the original Jurassic Park film.

Real talk from a former staffer at Virginia’s Shadow Prison | “sex offender civil commitment” should be abolished Proponents call these laws “sex offender civil commitment” — but the people who know them best describe them as shadow prisons. In this disturbing look from an insider, we hear first-hand why Virginia’s so-called “sex offender civil commitment” facility is a shadow prison, and should be abolished. Inhumane This place is inhumane. [The author is a former staff member at the Virginia Shadow Prison, the so-called “Virginia Center for Behavioral Rehabilitation” (VCBR).  The former staff member is describing lived experience at this facility in this story.] Flagrant abuse of discretion by staff If you ask for help — or be asking for assistance — and you need see someone to step in?  They write you up. If you disagree with anything?  They right… Read more “Sex Offender Civil Commitment Exposed”

Former Staff Member at Virginia's Shadow Prison (VCBR)

Fight for release

I have been at VCBR for over 8 years. I made Phase 3 in 2011 with a recommendation for discharge. However, for some reason, I was put on phase probation. False information was put in my record. In 2015, I was demoted again to Phase 2 because I complained about clinical misconduct. In 2018, I was once again in Phase 3 with a recommendation for discharge. However, a new therapist joined our group besides the then current one. These 2 therapists undid all the accomplishments I made with my previous therapist who left. I complained about Ms. X. making fun of me in group due to my being sick. Even though I did the phase assignments, they wouldn’t let me present them, telling me I could during winter quarter of the year. On Jan. 8,  I read my progress report… Read more “Fight for release”

Frank

I am a normal human being

I am labeled a registered sex offender in the state of Florida. I am college educated, raised in a home with loving parents who showed me, by their example, the benefits of hard work and honest living. I was never sexually abused in any way. My family history is made up of intelligent people from the fields of engineering, architecture, art and design. I inherited the artistic side of the family genes. Human faces fascinate me. They are beautiful no mater their age. Because of this fascination I have been branded a pedophile. I broke the law by looking at pictures and video on the computer of underage girls. I have taken full responsibility for my actions and served my prison and probation time successfully, without incident. One of the “tests” I was given to see if I was a… Read more “I am a normal human being”

Mark
 

Galen Baughman in photo at Open Society Foundations Headquarters in Manhattan, wearing charcoal suit and dark blue shirt, depicted from the mid-torso up, with a background consisting of circular lights and dimmed grey circles several feet across.

Victory in Supreme Court of Virginia against out-of-control prosecution

Justices declare effort targeting leading advocate illegal, ending 5-year court battle   On Thursday, the highest court in Virginia ended the Commonwealth’s 13-year campaign to indefinitely detain a prominent advocate on criminal justice matters, Galen Baughman. In a victory for justice the Supreme Court ruled that the petition filed against Baughman in 2017 was illegal. A Short History of Baughman’s Fight Baughman has been targeted by the Virginia attorney general’s office under the state’s civil confinement scheme since 2009 when prosecutors filed a petition to send him to Virginia’s shadow prison in Burkeville shortly before his release from a seven-year prison sentence for consensual adolescent sexual conduct. That initial petition went to trial in 2012 and a jury voted unanimously in his favor. Baughman describes that trial in a 2015 TED Talk. In 2017, less than 24 hours before hisRead more “Victory in Supreme Court of Virginia against out-of-control prosecution”

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Protest in Texas Against Civil Commitment

Protest Against Texas Shadow Prison in Littlefield Salute from Just Future There was a protest against the Texas system of so-called “sex offender civil commitment” in Littlefield, Texas on Saturday, April 09, 2022. Hats off to the brave advocates against pre-crime preventative detention who rallied in the middle-of-nowhere Texas to stand up for their values and their loved ones. The Propaganda If it looks like a prison, and has razor wire like a prison, and treats people without dignity or rights like a prison… it’s probably a prison.  But in response to a recent protest outside the “not-a-prison” prison in Littlefield, Texas, state officials inside the Ministry of Truth — strike that, the Texas Civil Commitment Office —released their talking points on how fantastic and totally not a human rights violation their “program” is. The KLBK Story In the interestRead more “Protest in Texas Against Civil Commitment”

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Galen Baughman — Oral Arguments — Supreme Court of Virginia

 

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Virginia bill would end civil commitment of sex offenders

By DENISE LAVOIE — RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Two Virginia Democratic lawmakers are spearheading a push to repeal a decades-old law that allows the state to hold certain sex offenders at psychiatric facilities indefinitely after their criminal sentences if they are deemed “sexually violent predators.” Critics say civil commitment laws are fundamentally unfair and violate the constitutional prohibition against punishing someone twice for the same crime. Supporters counter that the laws protect society from repeat offenders who are unable to control their behavior. Sen. Joe Morrissey and Del. Patrick Hope, both Democrats, are co-sponsoring legislation that would end the state’s authority to civilly commit sex offenders. “It is as archaic and as Neanderthal a process as I can imagine,” said Morrissey, a defense attorney and lead patron of the bill that would repeal 1999′s Civil Commitment of Sexually Violent PredatorsRead more “Virginia bill would end civil commitment of sex offenders”

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Medium distant photograph of the Virginia Center for Behavioral Rehabilitation (VCBR) in Burkeville, Virginia. This is Virginia's Shadow Prison. The image shows brown grass in the foreground, with an institutional prison-like building behinds a tall double razor wire fence that wraps over into the compound for the shadow prison, similar to the fence use to contain velociraptors in the original Jurassic Park film.

Sex Offender Civil Commitment Exposed

An insider who left Virginia’s shadow prison exposes the grim truth of the Old Dominion’s ‘not-a-prison’ prison where people who have already completed their sentences are indefinitely warehoused under the utterly pretextual guise of “treatment.”

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Fight for release

I have been at VCBR for over 8 years. I made Phase 3 in 2011 with a recommendation for discharge. However, for some reason, I was put on phase probation. False information was put in my record. In 2015, I was demoted again to Phase 2 because I complained about clinical misconduct. In 2018, I was once again in Phase 3 with a recommendation for discharge. However, a new therapist joined our group besides the then current one. These 2 therapists undid all the accomplishments I made with my previous therapist who left. I complained about Ms. X. making fun of me in group due to my being sick. Even though I did the phase assignments, they wouldn’t let me present them, telling me I could during winter quarter of the year. On Jan. 8,  I read my progress reportRead more “Fight for release”

Continue reading

I am a normal human being

I am labeled a registered sex offender in the state of Florida. I am college educated, raised in a home with loving parents who showed me, by their example, the benefits of hard work and honest living. I was never sexually abused in any way. My family history is made up of intelligent people from the fields of engineering, architecture, art and design. I inherited the artistic side of the family genes. Human faces fascinate me. They are beautiful no mater their age. Because of this fascination I have been branded a pedophile. I broke the law by looking at pictures and video on the computer of underage girls. I have taken full responsibility for my actions and served my prison and probation time successfully, without incident. One of the “tests” I was given to see if I was aRead more “I am a normal human being”

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Protest in Texas Against Civil Commitment

Protest Against Texas Shadow Prison in Littlefield Salute from Just Future There was a protest against the Texas system of so-called “sex offender civil commitment” in Littlefield, Texas on Saturday, April 09, 2022. Hats off to the brave advocates against pre-crime preventative detention who rallied in the middle-of-nowhere Texas to stand up for their values and their loved ones. The Propaganda If it looks like a prison, and has razor wire like a prison, and treats people without dignity or rights like a prison… it’s probably a prison.  But in response to a recent protest outside the “not-a-prison” prison in Littlefield, Texas, state officials inside the Ministry of Truth — strike that, the Texas Civil Commitment Office —released their talking points on how fantastic and totally not a human rights violation their “program” is. The KLBK Story In the interestRead more “Protest in Texas Against Civil Commitment”

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Galen Baughman — Oral Arguments — Supreme Court of Virginia

 

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Cost of the Shadow Prison in California

California spends the second most money on prisons per capita in the nation. Especially now, with the pandemic ravaging our economy — at every level from local municipalities to the national tax base — state governments are left with difficult budgeting decisions to make. While congress has the luxury of deficit spending, individual state governments are constitutionally barred from going into the red. But it is impossible to balance a budget during the worst fiscal downturn since the Great Depression while spending the same amount of money as they were in the “before times.” One easy solution to their money problem would be to eliminate their shadow prison program.  In 2009, the annual cost of running California’s civil containment prison, Coalinga State Hospital, was $117,383,741. A decade later, that number shot up to $298,184,000 in 2019. That is a 254Read more “Cost of the Shadow Prison in California”

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In Memoriam: Lives Lost While Imprisoned After Their Release Date in Minnesota

The people who run these programs pretend that they are for “treatment.”  For at least 60 people who were sent to the Minnesota Sex Offender Program it was a death sentence.  The following names, placed here in memoriam, are a stark illustration of the false promise of therapeutic intent.  The names listed remind us of why we work, today and every day, to abolish pre-crime preventative detention systems.

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