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Show 74 State Hospital's administration showed little enthusiasm over new laws providing for commitment of sex offenders. In the hospital's 1952 annual report, Superintendent Heninger described overcrowding so acute as to present "a serious block to proper segregation and treatment," and in 1954 the facility lost its accreditation due to overcrowded conditions and insufficient personnel." Without additional appropriations for facilities and staff, the new law amounted to an unfunded mandate with few practical benefits. This situation was not unique to Utah, but reflected the experience of underfunded state facilities wherever such laws existed. According to New York judge Morris Ploscowe, sexual psychopath laws "were most often used to punish and isolate minor offenders rather than dangerous predators," and the treatment for sexual psychopaths "usually involved little more than warehousing them .... State hospital administrations were unhappy about taking on sexual psychopaths as patients ... (as) they often didn't have adequate facilities to deal with the patients they already had.?" In its 1956 Annual Report, the Utah State Hospital's administration stated, "So far as it affects the Hospital, the present sex crimes law contains many unrealistic and unjust provisions, without adding significantly to the safety and welfare of society or the offenders.'?" In short, the 1951 Sexual Criminals Act represented a well-intentioned but flawed policy that at least potentially created another layer of legal persecution against 47"Utah State Hospital Annual Report," 1952, p. 8, Utah State Archives, Salt Lake City; "State Hospital Denied Recognition," Salt Lake Tribune, 8 April 1954, p. 21. 48Miller, Sex Crime Panic, 82. 49"Utah State Hospital Annual Report," 1956, p. 5, Utah State Archives, Salt Lake City. |
