Paraphilia NOS, nonconsent: not ready for the courtroom

Sexually violent predators (SVP) constitute a serious potential risk to public safety, especially when they are released after too short a prison sentence. Twenty states and the federal government have developed a seemingly convenient way to reduce this risk. They have passed statutes that allow for the involuntary (often lifetime) psychiatric commitment of mentally disordered sexual offenders after prison time is up. In three separate cases, the Supreme Court has accepted the constitutionality of this procedure, but only if the offender's dangerousness is caused by a mental disorder and is not a manifestation of simple criminality. The idea that paraphilic rape should be an official category in the psychiatric diagnostic manual has been explicitly rejected by Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM)-III, DSM-III-R, DSM-IV, and, recently, DSM-5. Despite this, paraphilia NOS, nonconsent, is still frequently used by mental health evaluators in SVP cases to provide a mental disorder diagnosis that legitimizes psychiatric commitment and makes it appear constitutional. This commentary will show how the diagnosis paraphilia NOS, nonconsent, is based on a fundamental misreading of the original intent of the DSM-IV Paraphilia Workgroup and represents a misuse of psychiatry, all in the admittedly good cause of protecting public safety.