Justice program rarely commits predators BUTNER, N.C., March 19 (UPI) -- A federal initiative to keep the nation's worst sexual predators in custody indefinitely has proved anemic, a USA Today investigation reveals. The 6-year-old effort, which seeks federal civil commitment of sexual predators the U.S. Justice Department deemed too dangerous to be set free, has resulted in court approval for detaining only 15 men, USA Today said Monday. The department has lost or dropped cases against 61 of the 136 men it attempted to detain. The newspaper noted a federal appeals court in Richmond has labeled delays in bringing the men to trial "troubling" and said that could raise concerns about their constitutional rights being violated. Dozens of the men, imprisoned in a section of a Butner, N.C., federal prison that houses the predators, are still awaiting trial. USA Today said it reviewed the 136 cases and noted neither the Justice Department nor watchdog agencies had provided a public assessment of the federal civil commitment law on which the program relies. Many of the men have been found guilty of molesting children or brutal sexual assaults, and one killed a woman. All the men have been certified by U.S. Bureau of Prisons psychologists as suffering from mental abnormalities that make them "sexually dangerous." That designation allows the government to detain them as their cases are reviewed. The law requires a federal judge to decide whether an inmate is too dangerous to be released. For someone to be committed under the program, government attorneys must prove the person molested a child or committed a violent sex crime, has a mental disorder, and the illness would mean the person would have "serious difficulty" avoiding sex crimes. USA Today reported at least 40 of the 136 commitment cases ended when the Justice Department dismissed them, often years after the men's criminal sentences had ended. Court records reveal that in at least eight of those cases, the government relied on other ways to keep the men in custody. But many of the men, including some who had long records of abusing children, went free.