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The son of middle-class parents, Mark Brull -- now locked up indefinitely for consensual gay sex with a teenager -- spent some of his troubled adolescence at a state school whose inmates often turned to one another for recreational sex. At 19, he drew two years' probation for sexually touching his 11-year-old step-niece. When he was 21 and still on probation, Brull developed a consensual sexual relationship with a 14-year-old named Sean. In 1997, when one of Sean's peers was being harassed by an older teen, Brull urged his young friend to report the matter. Questioned by police, the older boy disclosed Sean's relationship with Brull -- who was arrested, tried, and sent to prison for 33 months. Just before his scheduled release, Brull was civilly committed to the Larned State Hospital sex-offender program from one day to life.

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he Kansas Sexual Predator Treatment Program was established in 1994 under the auspices of the Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services, following passage of the state's Sexually Violent Predator Act. Its twofold mission is "to protect the public" and to "assist motivated offenders to reduce their risk of re-offending to the point where they could be managed in open society as contributing citizens." This year the program is budgeted $13.4 million, covering 171 individuals. According to Michelle Ponce, 160 are now being treated.

Legal challenges began as soon as the ink was dry on the program's enabling legislation. In the mid-'90s, inmate Leroy Hendricks, remanded to Larned after completing a sentence for non-violent sex crimes, sued to obtain his release. When Kansas v. Hendricks reached the U.S. Supreme Court in 1997, however, the high court declared the Kansas Sexually Violent Predator Act constitutional. Writing for a 5-4 majority, Associate Justice Clarence Thomas found the law compatible with constitutional provisions against ex post facto punishment and double jeopardy, because "its purpose is not retributive," and its nature is civil, not criminal.

Thumb-twiddling for 'therapy'

Hendricks, 73 and in poor health, is now in "transitional housing" at the Kansas State Hospital at Osawatomie. Since Hendricks is expected to end his life at that facility, it's fair to ask what the state of Kansas really means by "transitional." For nearly all its "patients," the program amounts to a prolongation of imprisonment. Among the more litigious residents' chief assertions is that -- Clarence Thomas notwithstanding -- they are being treated as prison inmates, not persons enrolled in a mental health program. They insist the wafer-thin program is a sham, citing minimal therapy and overabundant free time.

In August 2006, the Kansas Department of Health and Environment (KDHE) began an inspection of Larned State Hospital. Inspectors found over 150 health and safety violations, citing "multiple unsafe, unclean, and unsanitary areas" at the 78-acre complex, which also serves seriously ill mental patients and disturbed children.

Early in 2007, the Wichita Eagle began publicizing the KDHE re-port. Calling its findings "overstated," hospital superintendent Mark Schutter told the Eagle that "three-fourths" of the violations were in the three buildings housing the SPTP, and blamed inmates' housekeeping.

Whatever squalor exists may stem from despair. According to Clinical Director Austin DesLauriers, "We've had two people in final release and a third right now in conditional release." Brull and others believe no SPTP detainee has ever returned to society "with the blessings of the program." Two releases in the SPTP's 14 years raises questions about the state's commitment to therapeutic rehabilitation.

Playing tag in limbo

Dr. Tim Davis, a social worker who teaches at Fort Hays State University, ended a five-year stint as a Larned SPTP staff therapist in 2002. He found the program counter-therapeutic, and questioned involuntary civil commitment from a civil liberties perspective. "It does come across as a warehouse facility," he says. "A major problem is the issue of labeling. If you brand someone a 'sex predator,' it's difficult for communities to accept their release."

On April 3, 2008, Brull's SPTP status was lowered from Phase V, one level short of "transition," to Phase III. He was shifted to a unit reserved for troublemakers. The reason cited for the move wasn't simply the contents of Brull's film collection, or his tendency to make waves, but his announced refusal to continue treatment.

"I am done with treatment," Brull says. "They want to whip you into robotic form, and they demand total compliance. This place is making me sick. There's a relentlessly sexualized focus on children. Issues I didn't have before coming here are now part of my life. It's a total nightmare."

Assigned to Shawnee County Judge Frank Yeoman, Brull's much-delayed lawsuit ran aground in 2006, when Brull's original lawyer was disabled in a motorcycle crash. The case is now set to start September 9, with attorney Kip Elliot representing Brull. A second suit has been filed by a group of inmates headed by Tim Burch, in whose room Brull's copy of the gay comedy Luster -- the DVD that launched Brull's threatened kiddie-porn prosecution -- was found.

See Marksworldfriends.com for more