Preventive detention of sex offenders: the American experience versus international human rights norms.

Nearly two decades after the birth of American Sexually Violent Predator (SVP) laws and the tolerant review of their legitimacy by American courts, European courts and international bodies are beginning to develop a jurisprudence of their own with regard to preventive detention. Applying international human rights norms, these bodies have been significantly less tolerant of preventive detention, looking not only at their design but also at their implementation. Simultaneously, American courts are showing the beginnings of a second look at SVP laws, inspired and informed not by promises about the future implementation of newly passed SVP laws, but rather by the sorry record of two decades of implementation. This article examines an American SVP scheme as it has been implemented over 20 years, contrasts the international perspective, and offers some speculation about the path of reform for American SVP schemes.

Legislative responses to sexual violence: an overview.

In the past three decades, the legislative response to sexual violence has undergone two sets of reforms. The feminist reforms, beginning in the 1970s, sought to modify legal forms and practices to reflect new theories of the nature of sexual violence. The "regulatory" reforms of the 1990s were atheoretical, and adopted a "preventive" strategy to close perceived gaps in the system of social control. This article examines the second wave of reform, with special emphasis on Sexually Violent Predator (SVP) laws. It summarizes the current legal controversies generated by these laws, and suggests that the underlying assumptions and forms adopted by the 1990s reforms may undercut some of the advances achieved by the feminist reforms in understanding and addressing sexual violence.