Definition of civil commitment in US English:
civil commitment
nounˌsivil kəˈmitməntˌsivil kəˈmitmənt
Post-sentence institutional detention of an offender with the intention of preventing further offenses.
a 75-year-old convicted sex offender being held in civil commitment
Example sentencesExamples
- The process would prevent the stigma of civil commitment as well as the need to satisfy the legal criteria for commitment, the right to legal representation and adjudication by a court.
- The fear that many pedophiliacs can't be stopped has led Congress to lengthen sentences for child sex offenders and has persuaded some states to use involuntary civil commitment laws to keep them behind bars indefinitely.
- Due to small sample size and selection bias, we can only provide the reader with some educated and possibly idiosyncratic guesses about the prognostic features of mandatory sex offender treatment through civil commitment.
- There are significant reasons why different standards of proof are called for in civil commitment proceedings as opposed to criminal prosecutions.
- Individuals in crisis, she continued, should be placed in a treatment facility, independently evaluated and given treatment under the civil commitment statute.