Va.‘s sex-offender center will fill up by 2012, officials say

The state's new $62 million home for sexually violent predators, including rapists and child molesters, will fill up in the next two or three years, officials warned yesterday.

Dr. James Reinhard, commissioner of the Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services, told the State Crime Commission that the Virginia Center for Behavioral Rehabilitation in rural Nottoway County will reach its 300-bed capacity by 2012.

Reinhard said that contributing to the pace of admissions were changes in state law in 2006 that increased by about 350 percent the number of sex offenders eligible for civil commitment after their prison terms end.

The 2006 changes expanded the number of qualifying crimes -- rape, forcible sodomy, object sexual penetration and aggravated sexual battery -- to include other offenses, such as carnal knowledge of a child 13 to 15 years old and abduction with sexual intent.

Reinhard said answers to the capacity question need to be found quickly -- "2012 is right around the corner." Had the law not changed in 2006, the projected population of the maximum-security facility would have been 94 by 2012.

It now costs about $140,000 a year to confine and treat each of the center's 156 residents, and the news about reaching capacity comes at a time when the state is facing severe budget problems.

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that sex offenders with requisite "mental conditions" can be committed civilly by courts as sexually violent predators and held beyond their prison terms for rehabilitation and treatment. Virginia is one of about 16 states that do so.

The intent of legislators in creating the program was to protect the public from the "worst of the worst" sex offenders.

The behavioral rehabilitation center first opened at a makeshift facility in the Petersburg area in 2003. Last year, it moved to the 28-acre campus in Nottoway.

Reinhard reported yesterday that 214 people have been committed by judges for treatment under the program. Twenty-eight of them are on conditional release and subject to heavy electronic and other monitoring.

Steven Wolf, head of the state's Sexually Violent Predator Services, said he estimates that one-third of those civilly committed will remain at the center for a very long time, one-third might stay for five or so years, and one-third could be released conditionally "fairly quickly."

He said a major obstacle to conditional release is finding a place for the offenders to live.

Among the answers under study would be opening a secure facility to serve as a transition between the behavioral center and the community; reopening part of the Petersburg facility to accommodate women and those incompetent for trial; and expanding conditional release.

At the request of state Sen. Kenneth W. Stolle, R-Virginia Beach, the co-chairman of the crime commission, officials will look at whether a violation of conditional release is a criminal offense for which the violator could be returned to a state prison rather than the center.

If release violation is not a crime, the commission may consider making it one. That, Stolle said, could make the program more efficient and give offenders more incentive to comply with the conditions of release.

Contact Frank Green at (804) 649-6340 or .