New York is the latest state to abandon the principle that people should be punished, once and only once, for what they have done, but never for a crime they have not committed. Sexual predator laws deprive sex offenders of their liberty after they finish their sentences -- a detention that seems to many (but not to a majority of the Supreme Court) to be a second punishment that isn't moored to a new crime....
States are permitted knock the cap off sentences by changing the label from "punishment" to "treatment." The state claims the power to detain and treat dangerous and disordered sex offenders to protect against future sex crimes that it fears the detainee will otherwise commit.
(TalkLeft - emphasis mine)
The proposed guidelines "would also create a new 'sexually motivated felony' that would apply to those who intended to commit a sex crime but did not."
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