When the police caught up with man and asked him why he had been naked behind the school, he answered, "There were buzzards flying overhead and I wanted to see what they did." He denied that he was on school property.
The conduct on display here is considerably more disturbing than that of the not-quite-nudists who gardened peacefully on their own property and broke no laws. This man allegedly made a point of displaying himself on school property, and reportedly had been arrested once before for sneaking into the boys' locker room and undressing.
The man's behavior and bizarre responses to the kids and police suggest that he's plagued by an untreated mental illness. As is true of too many Americans who suffer from the twin menaces of poverty and mental illness, he'll probably be dealt with by the criminal justice system when he should be in the health care system.
Some people, fearful of what the man might do in the future, are likely to argue that he should be treated like a "sexual predator" by confining him in a "treatment unit" that is indistinguishable in most respects from a prison. Despite the denials and excuses and justifications advanced by our courts and fearful citizenry, sexual predator laws exist to punish people for what we fear they might do in the future. Whatever marginal gain in public safety we would achieve by confining this man to prevent him from committing a more serious crime is offset by the harm done to core American values, including the presumption of innocence and the belief in "liberty and justice for all" -- including the mentally ill. Preventive detention is not the appropriate response to fear.
If left alone, the man's behavior may or may not escalate. Read the literatute carefully and you'll find that predictions of future behavior are notoriously unreliable. Nonetheless, some people who behave like this will eventually engage in more harmful acts. We need health care and social services systems that can identify, treat, and provide close supervision to people with mental illnesses that lead to concerning behavior. Treating and supervising this man now will do more to protect society than locking him up for a few months because he was laying naked behind the school, and is more consistent with American values than locking him up indefinitely to ease our fear of his future conduct.
