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This week on Everyday Injustice, we spoke with Emma Ruth, who recently wrote a piece with the Prison Policy Initiative on the little known and often misunderstood practice of civil commitment.\n\nThe 20 states include California and Illinois.\n\nShe noted that 20 states and the federal Bureau of Prisons \u201cdetain over 6,000 people, mostly men, who have been convicted of sex offenses in prison-like \u201ccivil commitment\u201d facilities beyond the terms of their criminal sentence.\u201d\n\nSome of these commitments are indefinite.\n\nWhile there are questions about the constitutionality of the practice, in 2017, the US Supreme Court \u201cdeclined to hear a case from Minnesota after a federal judge deemed the practice unconstitutional.\u201d\n\nAmong the concerns raised in the segment \u2013 the lack of safeguards, the fact that these are \u201cshadow prions\u201d without full due process of law, questionable evidence-based practices, and the overall deplorable conditions of the facilities themselves.