Heat’s on state’s sex treatment facilities

04/18/2006

Rapist’s escape shows why the push to better secure hospitals where offenders are being held

BY DAVID HAWLEY
Pioneer Press

How secure is the Minnesota Security Hospital in St. Peter?

The weekend escape of a convicted rapist highlights the difficult balance of handling sexual offenders who have completed their prison confinements and yet are being held — indefinitely, it seems — for treatment as patients.

While authorities continued searching for Michael Dale Benson on Monday and reported a possible sighting near Bemidji, two state lawmakers called for a strengthening of security at Sts. Peter’s sprawling 580-acre treatment complex.

Officials running the program agreed.

“I don’t think people are arguing about security,” said Wes Kooistra, assistant commissioner for the Department of Human Services, the agency operating the state’s secured treatment facilities at St. Peter and Moose Lake.

In fact, both facilities are expected to receive additional legislative funding this year. Nonetheless, St. Peter’s two DFL legislators — Sen. John Hottinger and Rep. Ruth Johnson — issued a statement Monday that called for more resources dedicated to beefing up security.

The main priority for the past four or five years has been improving security at the hospitals, though neither could be called a maximum-security facility, Kooistra said.

“We have talked about trying to reach a security level that’s comparable with medium security in a state prison,” Kooistra said. “When we began some years ago, it was entirely from a treatment perspective.”

This year, the department asked legislators for $2.5 million to improve security at St. Peter. Gov. Tim Pawlenty recommended the request, and the House and Senate approved it in separate bonding bills.

In addition, Pawlenty wants the state to borrow $50 million to build additional security facilities at the sex-offender treatment program in Moose Lake.

The reason is a sharp spike in civil commitment of sexual offenders. Five years ago, Minnesota had 180 sex offenders committed to state hospitals. Now, there are about 340, Kooistra said, including 180 at St. Peter and about 150 at Moose Lake.

And by 2010, that population is expected to be about 800.

The growth actually began back in the early 1990s, when lawmakers crafted a civil commitment statue that withstood constitutional challenges.

“As a result, we’ve entrusted the custody of high-risk sex offenders to a department that has its expertise in imparting services to people in need,” said Eric Janus, a professor at William Mitchell College of Law who unsuccessfully challenged the constitutionality of the statute.

“I’m not saying that’s why this guy escaped,” Janus said. “But the reality is, we’re asking a mental hospital to take on the role of a prison.”

Benson and the three others escaped from a wing that had been built in 1995 with an emphasis on security, Kooistra said.

Benson, who was civilly committed 13 years ago after serving a four-year prison sentence, remained at large after he and three other men pried a 42-pound bar out of the barred, steel-encased frame covering the window in Benson’s room and slithered through a 10-inch by 20-inch vertical opening.

Kooistra did not describe how the escapees managed to remove the bar, but he said it involved “another tool … and we don’t know how they got that.”

“We’re reviewing what happened,” Kooistra said.

The three accomplices were captured within hours, but the search for Benson broadened after a farmer reported his car had been stolen and authorities using a bloodhound matched Benson’s scent to the scene.

At 1 p.m. Monday, authorities said they had a “credible” sighting of Benson driving the stolen car near Cass Lake, where he was last seen heading in the direction of Bemidji on U.S. 2.

“We’ve notified law enforcement in that area,” Minnesota Department of Public Safety spokesman Kevin Smith said late Monday.

Benson, 42, grew up in Ashby, a small town northwest of Alexandria. In 1989, he was convicted of first-degree criminal sexual conduct after breaking into a man’s home in the Alexandria area and raping the man’s girlfriend. After completing his prison sentence, Benson was deemed a sexually dangerous person and was civilly committed in 1993.

Only one man — all those committed are men — has ever been released from the Minnesota Sex Offender Program. That man was later returned to state custody.

In 2003, the rate of civil commitments increased sharply when Alfonso Rodriguez Jr., a registered sex offender, was arrested in the disappearance of college student Dru Sjodin. Rodriguez, who had been released rather than sent to a secure state hospital, is currently facing trial in North Dakota on a federal murder charge that could carry the death penalty.

A number of states have civil commitment statues for sex offenders, but Minnesota is one of the few that has shelved any program for conditional release, Janus said. He said desperate escape attempts are understandable.

“Right now, there’s only one way out,” he said. “That’s to die.”