Legislators wary of request for sex-offender program expansion

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The largest single request in Gov. Tim Pawlenty‘s bonding proposal is an $89 million expansion of a Moose Lake facility that houses violent sex offenders. In fact, it represents 13 percent of the $685 million in capital-investment projects that Pawlenty recommended earlier this month.

The proposed expansion, which would increase capacity at the Moose Lake facility by 400 beds, came before the House’s Health Care and Human Services Finance Division for a hearing earlier this week. Dennis Benson, executive director of the Minnesota Sex Offender Program, told the committee that the need for additional facilities is dire.

“These are critical needs, because we really are compelled to treat these people,” Benson testified. “We are required to treat anybody who wants treatment. Given our current situation, we simply don’t have adequate treatment rooms.”

The Minnesota Sex Offender Program (MSOP) was created under the premise that it would treat the state’s most dangerous sexual predators after they’ve finished serving their prison sentences and then release them back into society. But in nearly two decades of existence, the program has failed to successfully rehabilitate and release anyone.

Consequently, the MSOP has steadily mushroomed in size. In 2003 there were fewer than 200 people civilly committed as sex offenders. Now, that population is nearing 600. By 2016, according to projections by the Department of Human Services, which runs the MSOP, the number of involuntary commitments is slated to approach 1,000. In fact, Minnesota now has, per capita, the highest number of civilly committed sex offenders in the country.

“That says a lot right there,” says Rep. Tina Liebling, DFL-Rochester. “We are doing something very wrong. It cannot be that we have more serious sex offenders in this state than elsewhere.”

As a result of the MSOP’s burgeoning enrollment, the costs of running it have also escalated sharply. In 2004, the MSOP’s annual budget was slightly more than $20 million. This year, it’s expected to be roughly $65 million.

The 300-plus-percent surge in costs has occurred despite a 15 percent decrease in the amount of money spent per patient. In 2007, the Department of Human Services (DHS) spent $387 per day on each person enrolled in the program. This year, that figure is expected to be $328 per day. By the time the new 400-bed facility is completed, the agency expects per-diem cost to be down to $250.

The dramatic expansion of the MSOP in the last seven years is not coincidental. In 2003 Dru Sjodin was abducted from a mall parking lot and killed by a convicted sex offender who had recently been released from the prison system. In the wake of that grisly crime, the Department of Corrections ordered that all Level III Sex Offenders – those deemed most likely to re-offend – exiting prison be reviewed by prosecutors for possible civil commitment. The result: Enrollment and costs skyrocketed.

Many legislators are frustrated at continuing to pour money into a program that has established no track record of success. The expenditures are particularly galling given the immense pressures on the DHS budget. Legislators from both parties are currently struggling to create a viable replacement for the General Assistance Medical Care program for indigent adults, which was eliminated by Pawlenty last year as part of budget cuts.

“I have to say, I feel very, very troubled by this request,” Liebling said at Monday‘s hearing. “The need here is not an act of God. The need here is a result of state policies … This is not where I want to be spending the state’s money.  I really don’t. I want to be building colleges. I want to be building health care facilities.”

Rep. Jim Abeler, R-Anoka, the ranking Republican on the committee, also professed frustration at the program’s unremitting growth. He pointed out that, by contrast, a similar program in Wisconsin has established a track record of steadily treating and releasing offenders. “You don’t hear that Wisconsin is being overrun by sex offenders,” he noted.

Benson insisted that the program is making progress in treating patients. He noted, for instance, that 80 percent of MSOP enrollees are now actively involved in treatment, up from 50 percent about five years ago. Benson also pointed out that a relatively new program, which allows likely candidates for civil commitment to get a head start on treatment while still in prison, now has roughly 70 participants.

“We don’t decide who needs to come to this program,” Benson said. “The courts do. The courts decide when they’re ready to go home. Our piece in this is to create a treatment program that is constitutionally sound.”

Of course, the issue is politically freighted. Few politicians are willing to invest much time or political capital in pushing for more violent sexual deviants to be released from secure facilities. The $89 million Moose Lake facility is the top bonding priority of DHS. And the DFL-controlled Legislature is expected to pass a capital-investment bill at least $300 million heftier than Pawlenty’s proposed package. In other words, the new sex-offender facility is likely to be in the final package, no matter what the criticisms.

But Abeler figures it might become a bargaining chip for DFL leaders looking to get a few more of their priority projects into the bill.

“I don’t think anything is a done deal,” he says. “It may well be that the governor may have to fight for it. The bonding process is quite a dance.”