Cite as: 521 U. S. 346 (1997)
Breyer, J., dissenting
effects" and that, as far as treatment goes, "[t]oday, it's still not available." Id., at 420-421. Nor does the assertion made by the Kansas Attorney General at oral argument help the majority. She never stated that Hendricks, as opposed to other SVP's, was receiving this treatment. And we can find no support for her statement in the record.
We have found no other evidence in the record to support the conclusion that Kansas was in fact providing the treatment that all parties agree that it could provide. Thus, even had the Kansas Supreme Court considered the majority's new evidence—which it did not—it is not likely to have changed its characterization of the Act's treatment provisions as "somewhat disingenuous." 259 Kan., at 258, 912 P. 2d, at 136.
Regardless, the Kansas Supreme Court did so characterize
the Act's treatment provisions and did find that treatment was "at best" an "incidental" objective. Thus, the circumstances here are different from Allen, where the Illinois Supreme Court explicitly found that the statute's aim was to provide treatment, not punishment. See supra, at 382-384. There is no evidence in the record that contradicts the finding of the Kansas court. Thus, Allen's approach—its reliance on the state court—if followed here would mean the Act as applied to Leroy Hendricks (as opposed to others who may have received treatment or who were sentenced after the effective date of the Act) is punitive.
Finally, Kansas points to United States v. Salerno, 481 U. S. 739 (1987), a case in which this Court held preventive detention of a dangerous accused person pending trial constitutionally permissible. Salerno, however, involved the brief detention of that person, after a finding of "probable cause" that he had committed a crime that would justify further imprisonment, and only pending a speedy judicial determination of guilt or innocence. This Court, in Foucha, emphasized the fact that the confinement at issue in Salerno was "strictly limited in duration." 504 U. S., at 82. It described
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