Correction: The following opinion piece incorrectly cites Smith’s identification as a woman as the reason for the convicted child molester’s release from prison. As a report by USA Today details, Smith’s original prison sentence did not shorten due to Smith’s gender identity change. The title of this op-ed has been revised and this correction has been added to address this issue.
Smith “had begun receiving treatment for gender reassignment at the correctional facility after expressing the desire to switch gender identities in October 2017,” more than two years before Smith’s release, USA Today fact-checker Ian Richardson reports. Under Iowa’s “Sexually Violent Predators Act” (1998), the Iowa Attorney General’s Office had planned to pursue actions that would commit Smith to an Iowa mental health institute program at the completion of Smith’s sentence, “which actually kept Smith in the correctional facility beyond the initially scheduled time for [Smith’s] release,” according to the attorney general’s office.
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