MSOP isn't serving anyone well

Minnesota's practice of labeling sexual predators as mentally ill debases both our commitment law and the scope of ethical medical and psychiatric practice.

Civil commitment laws are designed to treat patients who are sick and to protect society while they are sick. That's why years ago we wisely stopped committing mentally ill people indefinitely to mental institutions.

However, in recent years, Minnesota has chosen to use our compassionate civil commitment laws to put away socially undesirable sex offenders. Although many clients in the Minnesota Sex Offender Program (MSOP) have or have had mental illness and/or drug addictions, committing them as mentally ill or as having "personality disorder" reminds me of the "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" character McMurphy, who was neither committable nor in need of psychiatric treatment.

Studies show a very limited effectiveness for using psychotherapy or medications to prevent reoccurrence of sexual violence in such clients. Such efforts have merit. But violent offenders, victims and society all deserve better. Our policymakers are understandably reluctant, for political reasons, to let them out of their current psychiatric prisons. One reoccurrence is one too many.

Compare this to goals and standards of care for bona fide medical conditions -- including mental and addictive disorders: patient-centered treatment, rehabilitation, social supports and a mainstream life in the community to the extent possible.

Pretending that most sex offenders are really patients diverts money and resources from application of evidence-based treatments for mental and addictive disorders. Criminal sex offenders need to be managed in the corrections system rather than in the health-care system. That said, it is shamefully true that jails and prisons are currently overused and not the right venue for mentally ill patients needing psychiatric care.

And yes, Minnesota needs specialized psychiatric hospitals for patients who are mentally ill and dangerous. But we need to rescind mistaken legal notions of "patienthood" for most predatory sex offenders in the system.

LEE BEECHER, MAPLE GROVE; PSYCHIATRIST