8-10-2011 Minnesota:
ST. PAUL, Minn. -- The spiraling cost of confining Minnesota's most dangerous sex offenders after prison is forcing state lawmakers to confront a once politically untouchable program. But they're doing so by sticking counties with a bigger bill.
For every sexual predator the courts send to the Minnesota Sex Offender Program after Aug. 1, counties must pay a quarter of the $120,000 annual cost, up from 10 percent. The move, under a new state budget that became law after last month's 20-day state government shutdown, is expected to save the state $2 million over the next two years and more in later years.
That might not sound like much in the context of a $70 million annual budget for more than 600 sex offenders. But the program has come under fresh scrutiny as the state's financial situation worsened.
With the program's population projected to more than double in the next decade, lawmakers are trying to make local officials choose cheaper ways to manage risky sex criminals. Prosecutors in the offender's home county decide whether to seek the court-ordered treatment, typically when an offender is close to finishing a prison term.
"There's a fair amount of politics in deciding they're going to send everybody away because they're not a very desirable population," said Rep. Jim Abeler, R-Anoka, who pushed for the higher county payments as the Minnesota House's lead Republican on social services spending.
"The idea was if they have to pay a little more out of their own pocket, maybe they'll be a little more careful about who they send."
Minnesota confines more sex offenders per capita than any other state that uses civil commitment for sexual predators. The state has never permanently released anyone from its $328-a-day treatment program, where the population mushroomed after a 2003 slaying by a convicted rapist released from a state prison.
County prosecutors said they don't plan to ease up on sex offender commitment cases.
"I'd hate to put a psychopath back out on the street and then justify how we did it because of monetary reasons," Crow Wing County Attorney Don Ryan said. "I'd probably have to go the other way and say, `No, we're going to have to spend the money.'"
Ryan's county sits in a cluster of northwestern Minnesota counties where an auditor's report earlier this year found one of the highest rates of civil commitment for sex offenders. Most rural prosecutors tended to pursue the post-prison option more than prosecutors in the Twin Cities.
The report concluded that lower-risk sex offenders from some of the more aggressive counties ended up in the treatment program, even though they might have been released had they come from another county.
County attorneys have their own explanations for the variation. Ryan said his county has a high conviction rate for sex crimes and may be more likely to follow up with civil cases when offenders finish criminal sentences.
Rice County Attorney Paul Beaumaster, whose southeastern Minnesota county is part of a group with the highest rate of civil commitments, said sexual predators are tracked more closely there.
"In the smaller jurisdictions we know our people better, and we're more vigilant," Beaumaster said, adding that the new law won't lessen his vigilance.
If that holds true throughout Minnesota's 87 counties, it will fall to elected county officials to come up with money to pay the higher share of sex offender treatment.
Counties are already expected to enact property tax increases and service cuts to respond to new cuts to local aid and other programs in the state's latest budget, said Jeff Spartz, who heads the Association of Minnesota Counties. Counties will see their state aid reduced at least 10 percent over the next two years, with deeper reductions on the horizon.
Still, Spartz said he doesn't expect them to skimp on public safety.
"They will cannibalize other things to take care of this," Spartz said of the sex offender treatment costs. "These are all viewed as extremely high-risk, dangerous people." ..Source.. by MARTIGA LOHN
August 10, 2011
Minn. squeezes counties for sexual predator costs
March 12, 2011
Audit: Sex offender program wastes money, is inconsistent
3-12-2011 Minnesota:
Legislative auditor calls for better therapy, cheaper alternatives.
Hundreds of sex offenders confined in state treatment facilities receive inadequate therapy from under-qualified staff at excessive cost, according to a report released Friday by Legislative Auditor James Nobles.
At the same time, many other offenders present such low risk to the public that they could safely be released to community group homes, saving taxpayers millions of dollars, the report said.
And in what they describe as a public safety paradox, auditors found that some sex offenders are held indefinitely, even though they pose less risk than dangerous felons in state prisons who are being released back to the streets.
The long-awaited report sets the stage for an emotionally charged debate over the 17-year-old Minnesota Sex Offender Program (MSOP), which takes offenders into treatment under a judge's order after they have completed their prison sentences
The program's population has nearly quadrupled, to more than 575, over the past decade, and Minnesota now confines more sex offenders, per capita, than any other state. Because the program has never released an offender, even after years of treatment, it is impossible to say whether it is effective, and it is considered vulnerable to court challenges, audit manager John Yunker said.
"A major problem with Minnesota's commitment process is that it generally involves a choice between a high-security facility [or] release from prison with no supervision,'' the report stated.
Nobles strongly recommended a legislative task force to study the civil commitment process, including why outstate county attorneys are twice as likely to seek commitments as prosecutors in the Twin Cities or northeastern Minnesota.
Rep. Tony Cornish, R-Good Thunder, said Friday that he will likely offer legislation to do that within two weeks.
"Something's not right. But I understand the pressure on county attorneys," said Cornish, chairman of the Public Safety and Crime Prevention Committee. "All it takes is another horrendous [incident] ... and anybody involved in the release of the offender gets beat up."
Cornish also has introduced a bill to double prison sentences for first-degree sexual misconduct, which will be the focus of a hearing on Tuesday. "We know that steel bars'' are one way to keep offenders off the street, Cornish said.
Sen. Linda Berglin, DFL-Minneapolis, said a legislative task force examined many of the same issues last year "and we really know enough to act now." But she said a new task force may be required because the Legislature is now in Republican hands, with many new legislators.
Offenders sit idle
Looking behind the razor wire of secure facilities in Moose Lake and St. Peter, the auditor's team found a system where hundreds of mostly idle offenders watch television for hours on end and receive insufficient therapy -- at an annual cost of more than $78 million, or about $120,000 per offender. The yearly cost per offender is three times higher than for inmates of state prisons, they said, but on par with similar programs in most other states.
Auditors called on state officials to replace this "all or nothing'' system and develop a plan for low-cost alternatives, while spending more on treatment of the most dangerous offenders.
The state Department of Human Services, which oversees the MSOP, supports most of the auditor's recommendations and is working to increase treatment and improve the competency of its staff, Commissioner Lucinda Jesson wrote at the end of the report.
After interviewing administrators, the auditors concluded that the MSOP holds about 120 offenders -- elderly, disabled or low-functioning -- who could be housed at much lower cost in group homes or halfway houses with adequate security measures.
The program's offender population has soared since 2003, when the gruesome rape-murder of Dru Sjodin by a sex offender who had only served prison time prompted then-Gov. Tim Pawlenty to tighten the procedure for release.
Since then, nearly 440 offenders have been committed to a treatment pipeline that was unprepared and overwhelmed, the auditor found. As a result, the system spent millions of dollars on security, but not enough money to hire qualified staff to provide treatment and therapy.
Since 2008, MSOP administrators have required new clinicians to have master's degrees and be licensed, and have reduced the number of staff vacancies.
Failing to provide adequate therapy could make the state vulnerable to lawsuits by offenders who argue that the MSOP is merely prison by another name, the report said. ..Source.. PAUL McENROE and WARREN WOLFE, Star Tribune staff writers
March 5, 2011
SecureAlert, Inc. Subsidiary to Provide Sex Offender Patient Tracking for Minnesota Sex Offender Program at Moose Lake, Minnesota
Someone in power needs their head examined, and its not a patient. This is the most unbelievable waste of money I have ever seen, folks in Minnesota should petition the Gov. to have this person removed from office!3-4-2011 Minnesota:
SANDY, UT -- (MARKET WIRE) -- 02/25/11 -- Securealert Inc. (OTCBB: SCRA), a leading international provider of patented, wireless electronic monitoring systems and services to public safety agencies, announces that their subsidiary, Midwest Monitoring and Surveillance, Inc., has reached agreement to provide patient tracking system inside the Minnesota Sex Offender Program at Moose Lake, Minnesota for a contract price of $725,456. The project began on February 9th, and is expected to take approximately 90 days to install and become fully functional.
"The Moose Lake project further demonstrates SecureAlert's ability to deliver a variety of monitoring solutions in support of a broad range of offender-specific customer needs," said Gary Shelton, President of the Midwest Monitoring and Surveillance operating division of SecureAlert, Inc. Mr. Shelton continued that "the State of Minnesota and the Moose Lake facility management team have been very deliberate in their efforts and diligent in their requirements to seek out the most efficient and effective solution available in the marketplace today." "We are very proud to have the opportunity to service this critical program," concluded Mr. Shelton.
"We continue to see an increased demand for 24/7 intervention monitoring solutions and for offender-specific applications," said John L. Hastings, President and Chief Operating Officer of SecureAlert, Inc. Mr. Hastings continued, "Even though these offenders are held within a secured facility to help correct their behavior, there is a need for these offenders to understand that they are under constant supervision, and the need for them to abide by every rule and requirement placed upon them by their counselors. Electronic monitoring is but one of the tools necessary to assist facility staff with helping patients understand that they have boundaries and accountabilities and that their movements do not go unchecked."
"We are pleased that our subsidiary Midwest Monitoring and Surveillance has continued to perform and win contracts that are driving SecureAlert towards profitability. We are grateful for their commitment and the partnership which we have achieved," concluded Mr. Hastings. ..Source..
