Diagnosing and litigating hebephilia in sexually violent predator civil commitment proceedings

In recent years, state and federal legislative initiatives have heavily emphasized punitive laws to combat sexual crime. These statutes include indefinite civil commitment, which is the ultimate infringement on sexual offenders' civil liberties. Many of these committed offenders have repeatedly offended against prepubescent children (pedophiles), and many have committed nonconsensual sexual offenses against adults (rapists). A substantial number of sex offenders have offended against postpubescent adolescents and teenagers outside the age range of pedophilia (commonly referred to by some clinicians and researchers as hebephilia). The use of the term hebephilia has recently received heightened scrutiny in sexually violent predator civil commitment proceedings. Specifically, experts debate whether hebephilia is recognized within the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, Text Revision (DSM-IV-TR) and whether it is a generally accepted diagnosis within the field of sexual offender assessment. Scholars and practitioners question how hebephilia pertains to sexual deviance and one's risk of reoffending and whether it ultimately meets the legal mental abnormality threshold of civil commitment through DSM diagnostic criteria. This article addresses these questions and provides recent federal case law that attends to hebephilia in sexually violent predator proceedings.