4-20-2010 Minnesota:
Legislative Auditor Jim Nobles said Tuesday that a detailed look at Minnesota's controversial sex offender program would hopefully answer many questions, but may not reach a definitive conclusion on whether it "either works or doesn't work."
Nobles acknowledged that the study, which he said his office would finish early next year, was tackling a topic that has created many headlines and much debate at the Legislature and would explore whether the program is effectively managed and provided "adequate treatment with reasonable opportunities" for patients to be discharged.
But Nobles said the study also needed to take a longer view of the program, looking at the costs of incarcerating a sex offender versus the costs of releasing them into society and running the risk of having them commit other sex crimes. "Sometimes, it's impossible to calculate," he said.
The state's sex offender program, which has grown from 149 patients in 2000 to 552 this year, has created political tension between Gov. Tim Pawlenty and DFL legislators over whether its costs can be contained and how much more should be spent without a thorough review of whether it is working. The governor and DFLers clashed earlier this year over Pawlenty's proposal to build a new facility in Moose Lake to accommodate the program's growth.
Convicted sex offenders are sent into the program using civil commitments after they finish serving their prison terms, but state officials acknowledge that no patient has yet been successfully treated. The program came to the forefront after the widely-publicized abduction and murder of Dru Sjodin by a convicted sex offender early in the governor's administration.
"This is an incredibly important topic," said Rep. Tina Liebling, DFL-Rochester, who attended Tuesday's hearing to discuss the study's details. ..Source.. Mike Kaszuba
April 20, 2010
Studying Minnesota's sex offender program
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3 comments:
Good God! The man that killed Dru was absolutely nuts. When he was released his own mother and sister begged authorities to lock him up before he killed someone. The opportunity was there to save Dru and nobody gave a damn. Now they want to treat everyone like this animal. There was no attempt to confine this one nut Rodriquez but now they can treat everyone everyone like insane killers. Rodriquez served 20 years. Surely some folks noticed that he was dangerous.
The state's sex offender program, which has grown from 149 patients in 2000 to 552 this year...
Convicted sex offenders are sent into the program using civil commitments after they finish serving their prison terms, but state officials acknowledge that no patient has yet been successfully treated.
In 10 years of the existence of this program NO PATIENT has been successfully treated? I'd like to see the contents of that program. Either the material is full of gobbledly gook minutae or else the people running it are totally incompetent. What a waste of tax payer dollars. Perhaps they would be better off spending that money on a program to "cure" journalists who "widely publicize" extreme cases which fills the average citizen with irrational fear.
This is a copy of a letter I sent to the reporter.
This report is absolutely terrifying. No cures in 10 years may mean that it wasn't broken to start with.
When Rodriquez was released his own mother and sister begged authorities to lock him up before he killed someone. Their fears were pushed aside and Dru Sjodin is dead. Now there has been a complete flip-flop that makes absolutely no sense except maybe politically.
Rodriquez, Couey and others of their ilk make up less than one half of one percent of all sex offenders. Of course that is too many but odds are against another one being in your state.
Solutions start with truth and there we have a problem. The DOJ and Human Rights studies are unbiased but no leaders are telling the public that the national recidivism rate is 3.3%. Meanwhile children are being molested by someone without a criminal record. How can anyone deny that 95% of sex crimes are by non-offenders with a rapidly growing registry to prove it?
Sex offenders are big business and political gold. How many profiteers so you think really want this problem to end? Saving just one child is so much bull. Thousands of children could be saved if focus were directed where the events are taking place.
Children are trapped. As one politician so eloquently put it "If you aren't willing to give your loved one up for 20 years you deserve what you get". Maybe she is right but kids don't think so. The public care about vengeance and are not concerned that many children end up in foster homes being sexually abused by strangers.
Nobody likes sex offenders and nobody grows up with the intent to be one. Stranger abduction is in the single digits. Most incidents happen in the home and involve inappropriate touching. These families can often be fixed and that is what children cry and pray for. I was one of those children. What I needed did not exist. It still doesn't. It never will until the children come first. Imagine soothing the pain and anger that is now carried over into adulthood. It seems that most of us have been abused in some way and the entire nation is on a witch hunt. We can do better. Civil commitment for sex offenders could easily turn into so much more. That really should scare the hell out of everyone.
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