Sex-offender center studied

The rapid population growth at Virginia's treatment center for sexually violent predators is largely the result of a flawed selection process, finds a new state study.

A staff review presented Monday to the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission concluded that the program's growth can be slowed if a risk-assessment method used to screen offenders for commitment is changed.

The Virginia Center for Behavioral Rehabilitation in Nottoway County holds rapists and others who have completed their prison sentences but whom courts have deemed too dangerous to release because of the risk they will reoffend.

They can be civilly committed and kept off the street but only if they receive meaningful treatment, a requirement that makes the center much more expensive than a prison.

When the center began in 2003, it was not projected to reach 100 residents until 2013. Instead, the population at the 300-bed, $62 million facility is now 282 at a cost of $91,000 a year each.

Olivia J. Garland, deputy commissioner for the department, told the commission that 150 of the one-person rooms at the center have been retrofitted to accommodate two residents, boosting capacity to 450 and providing room until 2015 or 2016.

"We hope that the recommendations that were made today about screening and evaluating potential (sexually violent predators) will reduce the rate of commitment and push this date back, perhaps a little further," Garland said.

But she warned that the center eventually would reach capacity. She added that she hoped that any new facility would be a less expensive, transitional one for residents preparing for conditional release.

Growth at the center took off after 2006, when the number of eligible crimes was increased from four to 28 and a new actuarial risk-assessment instrument, the "Static 99," was adopted as the initial means for commitment consideration.

The Static 99 meant that someone with just one sex offense (in addition to other related factors) could score high enough to be considered for commitment to the center, which was started with the intent of holding only the most dangerous offenders.

The unforeseen growth prompted the JLARC study released Monday. The commission will not vote on whether to adopt it until its Dec. 4 meeting.

The study found that the rapid growth was not the result of the increased number of eligible crimes but largely by the Static 99, which is completed for all violent sex offenders before their release from prison.

Of the 3,140 such offenders assessed from mid-2006 through the middle of this year, 24 percent scored high enough for further review. Of that number, 40 percent were ultimately committed in circuit courts.

The JLARC study found that while the Static 99 has some predictive value when applied to groups, it is of far less use for individuals.

The risk of someone reoffending who received a score of four or five — which leads to further commitment consideration — ranges from 4 percent to 92 percent.

The Static 99 also can miss some dangerous offenders who freely admit they remain a danger but who cannot be committed because state law requires a high enough score on the Static 99, noted the report.

Newer versions of the Static 99 suggest the version in use in Virginia overestimates the risk an offender will commit new crimes and that many people who have been committed would not have been committed using the new versions.

The study suggested a more flexible, consensus-based screening process be used.

JLARC also suggested that the Virginia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services, which runs the Virginia Center for Behavioral Rehabilitation, consult with a privately run center in Florida should Virginia consider privatizing its program.

After Monday's JLARC presentation, Mary D. Devoy, executive director of Reform Sex Offender Laws of Virginia, said she was pleased there appears to be movement away from using the Static 99.

She said that under the Static 99, a gay man who never has lived with a lover for more than two years already has scored three of the four or five points on the instrument that can trigger a commitment — before any sex crime is even considered.

If the state adopts a more selective way of screening offenders for civil commitment, she said, it raises another question: "What happens to those who should not be there?"

"I do feel that the study is all about saving the state money and not looking at the mistakes that were made," Devoy said.