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Sexual Grooming and Volitional Impairment in Sexually Violent Predator Proceedings  


Author:  Georgia M. Winters.; Elizabeth L. Jeglic.


Source: Volume 17, Number 02, February/March 2016 , pp.17-20(4)




Sex Offender Law Report

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Abstract: 

Most SVP laws permit the continued confinement of a sex offender beyond the term of his criminal sentence if the offender exhibits a mental abnormality that makes a future violent offense likely. This impaired or diminished capacity for behavioral self-control, referred to in the legal system as “volitional impairment”, was implicit in justifying civil commitment on public safety grounds, and explicit in the statutory language of many, though not all, such laws. This article examines the behavioral research and case law in one of the most controversial areas of volitional impairment—the application of the concept to the planned, strategic act of sexual grooming engaged in by child sexual abusers. Given that grooming is by definition a deliberate process, it suggests that offenders who engage in it have a great deal of control over their behavior, and that while they may indeed represent a threat to the public, they may not fit the definition of volitionally impaired.

Keywords: Kansas v. Hendricks; volitional impairment as a requirement for civil commitment

Affiliations:  1: John Jay College of Criminal Justice; 2: John Jay College of Criminal Justice.

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