Uncontrollable Urges and Irrational People

The danger a person may pose is a justification for criminal and civil confinement, but our society does not permit preventative confinement for social safety based on dangerousness alone. The criminal and civil confinement systems thus leave a gap in their ability to confine dangerous agents. Undoubtedly, dangerous citizens who have committed no crime or who have completed their sentences must be left at liberty if they are responsible. Sexual predators fall into the gap between criminal and civil confinement. They are routinely held fully responsible and blameworthy for their behavior because they almost always retain substantial capacity for rationality, they remain entirely in touch with reality, and they know the applicable moral and legal rules. Consequently, even if their sexual violence is in part caused by a mental abnormality, they do not meet the usual standards for an insanity defense.