McNeil Island: Paradise not a place for predators

Re: “Q&A with Bill Van Hook, new Special Commitment Center CEO.” (TNT, 5/5).

I’m sorry, I cannot accept the folks being held at the SCC on McNeil Island being called “patients” or “residents” instead of sexually violent predators (SVPs), as Chapter 71.09 of the Revised Code of Washington clearly calls them.

It’s understandable why the new CEO of what I must assume to be this modern monster factory in the midst of our sublime South Sound waters wouldn’t wish to point out this fact.

More troubling, however, is I always thought local news reportage involved asking tough, challenging questions of the powers that be in our area. Not mimicking members of the South Sound Together Welcoming Committee.

Having the SCC on McNeil Island makes as much fiscal sense as having a state prison there. That’s why we closed it. So where should the SCC for SVPs be located? How about next to any of the prisons within which these “specials” served their sentences? And what do you know, none of them were on islands.

This story was originally published May 10, 2016 at 10:16 AM with the headline "McNeil Island: Paradise not a place for predators."