Timothy Coon could spend his whole life confined to the Minnesota Sex Offender Program for actions he committed as a juvenile. And there are more than 50 others like him inside the walls of MSOP.

This week Dennis Benson will retire after four years as executive director of the Minnesota Sex Offender Program. His departure caps a career with the Department of Corrections that spanned more than three decades and included stints as warden at prisons in Stillwater and Oak Park Heights.

The motion passed off the floor with near unanimous support on Monday, easily garnering the two-thirds majority need to suspend the rules. Current state law does not require any kind of neighborhood notification when a sex offender from the Minnesota Sex Offender program is released to a halfway house.

Clarence Opheim is slated to become the first civilly committed sex offender in Minnesota to ever be released. Last week a special judicial panel ruled that he can be released to a halfway house in St. Paul under strict supervision.