The Illinois General Assembly enacted the Sexually Violent Persons Commitment Act (SVPCA) in 1998, allowing the State to petition for the indefinite detention of those who have committed sexually violent crimes if those individuals have mental illnesses that predispose them to commit further crimes in the future. Although the United States Supreme Court has upheld similar state statutes as constitutional in the past, the SVPCA does not comport with the Court’s basic requirements for such statutes because it is functionally punitive and implicates traditional goals of punishment. Moreover, § 40(b)(5) of the SVPCA, which pertains to conditional release, violates two separate United States Supreme Court standards regarding the due process rights of civil committees. Although the state’s interest in protecting the public from sexually dangerous individuals is well-founded, and some people with mental illnesses must be confined for their own protection and that of others, sexually-violent-persons legislation represents a concerning expansion of the preventive state. Even if the General Assembly can cure the specific constitutional issues with the SVPCA, the question remains: is this kind of legislation the right way for the state to achieve the above goals?

伊利诺伊州议会于 1998 年颁布了《性暴力者承诺法》(SVPCA)，允许州政府请求无限期拘留那些犯有性暴力犯罪的人，如果这些人患有精神疾病，容易在未来犯下进一步的罪行。尽管美国最高法院过去曾将类似的州法规视为宪法，但《SVPCA》并不符合法院对此类法规的基本要求，因为它在功能上是惩罚性的，并且涉及传统的惩罚目标。此外，《SVPCA》第 40(b)(5) 条涉及有条件释放，违反了美国最高法院关于民事委员会正当程序权利的两项单独标准。尽管国家保护公众免受性危险个人侵害的利益是有充分理由的，并且为了保护自己和他人，一些患有精神疾病的人必须受到限制，但性暴力者立法代表了预防性国家的令人担忧的扩张。即使大会可以与越南人民代表大会解决具体的宪法问题，问题仍然是：这种立法是国家实现上述目标的正确途径吗？