$50M urged for sex felon lockups

01/11/2006

Pawlenty proposes expanding Moose Lake to meet rising number of predators confined to secure treatment facilities

BY RACHEL E. STASSEN-BERGER
Pioneer Press

Gov. Tim Pawlenty wants to spend millions more to keep the rising number of Minnesota’s most dangerous sexual predators off the streets and in secure state hospitals.

Pawlenty said Tuesday that he wants the state to borrow about $50 million to build one hospital and design a second new facility — both at Moose Lake

His proposal came as he announced his $123 million in public safety construction projects for this year’s public works bill, which is paid for through state-backed bonds.

Five years ago, Minnesota had 180 dangerous sex offenders civilly committed in state hospitals. Now, there are almost 300. By 2010, that population is expected to be about 800.

Those predators will not be living in prisons; most have already served their time. Instead, they’ll be civilly committed, essentially for crimes judges and medical professionals believe they might commit and because of dangerous sexual desires they may have.

The huge growth rate is expensive. Last year, the state spent more than $32 million to care for the men judges had ordered into such care. That’s more than $100,000 per year, per person. Although economies of scale may lower per-person cost as the state houses more offenders, the total cost will rise significantly with the population.

The increased numbers may also test the constitutionally fragile nature of the policy. Minnesota’s program to send sex offenders to hospitals rather than release them out among the public, like similar policies in other states, has been challenged often in courts. Although the courts have placed strict limits on the program, so far it has always survived those tests.

But Eric Janus, a professor at William Mitchell College of Law who has represented clients who sought to overturn the policy, says that as civil commitment becomes more common, it may also become more vulnerable to legal challenge.
“To the extent that it becomes ordinary, the courts have said, that’s an alarm bell,” said Janus.

Human Services Commissioner Kevin Goodno, who is in charge of the program, said the policy has been found to be within the law in the past. He is working to see that it continues to be by ensuring, as mandated by courts, that civilly committed sex offenders have active treatment available while in the state’s care.
But treating sex offenders is hard, he said.

“We’ve been struggling with what treatment is effective,” said Goodno. “It is not a physical thing that you can treat with medication. … It is a behavioral issue, where you have to treat them to control their impulses, and it is a lot more difficult to do that.”

Only one man — all those committed are men — has ever been released from the Minnesota Sex Offender Program, which took its current form in the 1990s. That man was later returned to state custody.

The state had projected about 20 new sex offenders would be transferred to state hospitals each year. But then Alfonso Rodriguez Jr., a registered sex offender, was arrested in the disappearance of college student Dru Sjodin. Rodriguez, who was later charged with her murder, had been released from prison rather than sent to a secure state hospital a few months before Sjodin’s disappearance in November 2003.

The fallout from the Sjodin case has caused the number of sex offenders being referred for civil commitment to spike. Now state officials believe about 80 new offenders will be sent to the program every year for the foreseeable future.
Before Rodriguez’s arrest, Hennepin County was getting about three referrals for commitment from the Department of Corrections ever year. Since his arrest, Hennepin County has helped send 25 sex offenders to state hospitals, said Chief Deputy County Attorney Pete Cahill.

Sen. Don Betzold, DFL-Fridley, said decisions the Pawlenty administration made after Rodriguez’s arrest have accelerated the rate of growth in the Minnesota Sex Offender Program while careful examination of potential alternatives that would keep people out of custody has been lacking.

“We need to be more comprehensive,” said Betzold. He would like the state to spend more on early childhood education, police enforcement, probation officers and other programs, rather than spending more money on locking people up.

Pawlenty, a Republican, has responded to such criticism during his administration by saying public safety is his first priority.

Sex offender facilities were a costly part of the governor’s proposal for public safety projects, but traditional state prisons also were a sizable part. Among those proposals:

• $28 million for a new building and renovation of a geriatric unit at Faribault prison. Previously, state officials had suggested the state should spend $41 million for two new buildings but corrections officials now project slower inmate population growth than previously anticipated.

• $19.6 million to create a new segregation unit at Stillwater prison to house unruly and misbehaving prisoners, as well as very dangerous inmates. The current segregation unit, a jerry-rigged living unit, is a “nightmare” to guard and protect, officials have said.

• $10.3 million to add a fence and a new living unit at Shakopee prison, the only Minnesota prison for women. Although the male inmate population’s growth has slowed, the number of women prisoners is rising much faster. The fence project has been controversial because some neighbors of the suburban prison have objected to it looking and seeming too prison-like.

• $12.5 million for a new medical facility at Lino Lakes prison and to make other improvements around the prison system.

Earlier, Pawlenty said he would ask lawmakers to approve spending nearly $187 million on environmental and conservation building projects. On Friday, he will announce another set of building projects. Tuesday, he will release his entire proposal for construction projects.

Ultimately, lawmakers and Pawlenty will have to agree on a set of statewide building projects. Pawlenty would not say how much money he wanted to spend on building this year. Budget forecasts would allow for $965 million in borrowing.