Congress Bans Pell Grants for Sex Offenders (in civil commitment)

If civil commitment centers worked like they were intended to work (i.e., a time for therapy and then release) then in the final phase of therapy these grants would help folks reintegrate into society. However, given the powers that be are regularly perverting laws to keep folks interned, maybe these grants should be limited, not eliminated, but thats one person's opinion. The Congressional Pell Grant Caucus is chaired by none other than Rep. Ric Keller.

8-11-2008 National:

When Rep. Ric Keller, a Florida Republican, read in the St. Petersburg Times in 2003 about a twice-convicted rapist who was receiving Pell Grant money for computer classes, he was appalled. The man, who had served 24 years in prison, had been awarded about $15,000 in Pell Grants since 1999, when he was sentenced to a civil-commitment center intended for sex offenders deemed unready to be set free.

"It was simply crazy that our government was paying taxpayer dollars for locked-up rapists and child molesters, when low-income students have to flip hamburgers to go to college," Mr. Keller said in an interview.

Mr. Keller, the ranking minority member of the U.S. House of Representatives' higher-education subcommittee, introduced an amendment to legislation to reauthorize the Higher Education Act that would prevent residents of those civil-commitment centers from receiving the grants. After five years in the making, the bill finally cleared Congress in late July, and President Bush is expected to sign it.

Legal Limbo

Congress barred prison inmates from receiving Pell Grants in 1994, but said nothing about residents of civil-commitment centers, which were emerging at the time.

The centers, which house rapists and child molesters who have served their prison sentences but are deemed a continued threat to society, inhabit a legal middle ground, with a status somewhere between those of prisons and treatment facilities. Most emphasize therapy, trying to break residents of the cognitive habits that promote sexual deviancy, but also maintain high security. The centers have spread to 20 states since the mid-1990s, when a series of high-profile cases, including the rapes and murders of a 7-year-old girl in New Jersey and a 9-year-old boy in Florida, prompted public outcry about lenient sentencing.

Although the centers share the goal of treating residents until they are no longer dangerous, some stress containment while others focus on rehabilitation. Accordingly, their educational offerings vary. Some devote resources to voluntary therapy groups. Others offer General Educational Development programs and vocational courses, working with local community colleges to allow residents to take classes online or, in, some cases, in person.

Making Their Own Arrangements

It is unclear how many offenders are receiving Pell Grants. That's because the grants flow directly to students, bypassing center administrators.

Nancy Kincaid, a spokeswoman for Coalinga State Hospital, in California, which houses the largest civil-commitment facility in the country, says residents have used Pell Grants for correspondence courses. But she cannot say how many, since they make their own financial arrangements.

Michelle Ma, a spokeswoman for Coastline Community College, in California, which works with prisons, state hospitals, and juvenile-detention centers around the state, says 153 residents of the Coalinga center took correspondence courses at Coastline last year, and that 125 of them used Pell Grants. But because some Coalinga residents are not civilly committed sex offenders, she is not sure how many will be affected by the measure in the Higher Education Act.

At Sand Ridge Treatment Center, in Mauston, Wis., three residents are using Pell Grants to take correspondence courses, and three others have Pell accounts but have not withdrawn funds, says Stephanie Marquis, a center spokeswoman.

Re-entering Society

Roger Munns, a spokesman for Iowa's Department of Human Services, which operates the state's civil-commitment program at the Cherokee Mental Health Institute, says that while no residents now have Pell Grants, 13 have used them over the past three years.

"When they get a Pell Grant, the money is legally theirs," he says. "There's nothing we can do about that."

In most states, civil-commitment centers function as lifelong detention centers for sex offenders. (A recent article in the Star Tribune, in Minneapolis, notes that the only residents to be released from the state's center in its 14-year history had died.) The Arizona Community Protection and Treatment Center, however, focuses on community re-entry. It allows motivated residents, if they follow the rules and respond well to treatment, to attend community-college classes in person, accompanied by staff members from the center.

To take community-college courses, the residents must have refrained from fighting and from intimidating female staff members, cooperated with treatment, and shown seriousness about improving job skills, says Daniel F. Montaldi, director of the center. He estimates that more than a dozen offenders have used the grants since the civil-commitment program began in 1995. One resident is using a Pell Grant to take courses at a local community college.

Some residents who used Pell Grants have gotten in over their heads when they took college courses, says Mr. Montaldi. But he also describes the pride of a man now taking advantage of a Pell Grant, who shows staff members the grades of A on his essays. That man, who is in his 40s and in a wheelchair, hopes to eventually be released and do clerical work, the director says.

Mr. Montaldi says Pell Grants should be available to well-supervised individuals, to help them make the transition back into society.

Sarah Tofte, a researcher who has studied the release of sex offenders from incarceration, agrees. Ms. Tofte, who works for Human Rights Watch, an international advocacy group, calls Representative Keller's bill "a blow for the kind of rehabilitation that can make re-entry easier."

"It's always disappointing when there are restrictions on these kinds of rehabilitative options," she says, "because there are so few anyway."

Still, some of the centers do not expect to be affected by a legal restriction on Pell Grants.

The Minnesota Sex Offender Civil Commitment Program, the nation's second-largest, offers residents only a few basic-education courses. Dennis Benson, the program's chief executive officer, says Mr. Keller's proposal did not surprise him — there is never a "huge appetite" to pay for education for sex offenders, whether imprisoned or civilly committed, he says.

He predicts that a ban on the availability of Pell Grants will not make much difference in the work of his center. "While educational and vocational training is nice," he says, "our primary focus here is sex-offender treatment." ..News Source.. by INGRID NORTON