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Abstract: 

The current generation of sexual offender civil commitment laws may or may not be popular with the general public, but professional writings are not typically supportive of their existence. Sometimes these writings take the form of legal arguments and concerns about social policy. (See, for example, R.A. Prentky, E.S. Janus, and M.C. Seto, “Sexually Coercive Behavior: Understanding and Management,” NY Academy of Sciences, Vol. 989 (2003).) At other times, statistical arguments are made about how these laws are implemented in an inappropriate manner. It is about that second issue that this article was written. To be clear, this article was not written to support any of the sex offender civil commitment laws. Instead, the purpose of this article is to describe how certain statistical arguments being made lack scientific rigor, with the reason being quite regularly of one cause: improper assumptions. The hope of this author in writing this article is to correct this type of error.

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Affiliations:  1: Sand Ridge Secure Treatment Center.