Child Abuse | Civil Commitment Laws Will Reduce Child Sex Abuse

In June 1997, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a Kansas law allowing the state to confine sexual offenders to mental hospitals after they are released from prison. The case involved Leroy Hendricks, a 62-year-old pedophile who once told authorities that the only way he could stop molesting children was “to die.” ABC News got an unintentionally hilarious quote from Hendricks’ lawyer, who said his client was “shocked” by the ruling: “He and the other inmates [at the Kansas State Mental Health Correctional Facility] had gotten their hopes up and were extremely disappointed by the...

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