Cite as: 521 U. S. 346 (1997)
Breyer, J., dissenting
potentially helpful, as Kansas, supported by some groups of mental health professionals, argues is the case here, see supra, at 378). Conversely, a statutory scheme that provides confinement that does not reasonably fit a practically available, medically oriented treatment objective, more likely reflects a primarily punitive legislative purpose.
Several important treatment-related factors—factors of a kind that led the five-Member Allen majority to conclude that the Illinois Legislature's purpose was primarily civil, not punitive—in this action suggest precisely the opposite. First, the State Supreme Court here, unlike the state court in Allen, has held that treatment is not a significant objective of the Act. The Kansas court wrote that the Act's purpose is "segregation of sexually violent offenders," with "treatment" a matter that was "incidental at best." 259 Kan., at 258, 912 P. 2d, at 136. By way of contrast, in Allen the Illinois court had written that " 'treatment, not punishment,' " was "the aim of the statute." Allen, supra, at 367 (quoting People v. Allen, supra, at 99-101, 481 N. E. 2d, at 694-695).
We have generally given considerable weight to the findings of state and lower federal courts regarding the intent or purpose underlying state officials' actions, see U. S. Term Limits, Inc. v. Thornton, 514 U. S. 779, 829 (1995) (ordinarily "[w]e must . . . accept the state court's view of the purpose of its own law"); Romer v. Evans, 517 U. S. 620, 626 (1996); Hernandez v. New York, 500 U. S. 352, 366-370 (1991) (plurality opinion); id., at 372 (O’Connor, J., concurring); Edwards v. Aguillard, 482 U. S. 578, 594, n. 15 (1987); but see Department of Revenue of Mont. v. Kurth Ranch, 511 U. S., at 776, 780, n. 18; Stone v. Graham, 449 U. S. 39, 40-43 (1980) (per curiam); Consolidated Edison Co. of N. Y. v. Public Serv. Comm'n of N. Y., 447 U. S. 530, 533, 535-537 (1980), although the level of deference given to such findings varies with the circumstances, Crawford v. Board of Ed. of Los Angeles, 458 U. S. 527, 544, n. 30 (1982), and is not always as conclusive as a state court's construction of one of its stat-
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