State grilled over stalled changes to sex offender program

A lawyer representing people locked up in the Minnesota Sex Offender Program pressed the state's human services chief Friday to explain why Minnesota's done little to change the system.

Dan Gustafson grilled state Human Services Commissioner Lucinda Jesson over why the state is dragging its feet on a long list of recommended changes to the program, including an independent panel to evaluate clients, creation of a special court to handle commitment cases and a firmer timeline for decisions about confinement.

The recommendations came from a state task force, but Jesson conceded the state had not acted on them. She said even she thought the system for evaluating and possibly releasing clients was flawed when she arrived in 2011.

"It took too long," she testified.

Most of the recommendations were included in bills before the Legislature last session, but they failed to get to the governor's desk. Lawmakers have been divided over whether to improve the expensive and controversial sex offender program or simply extend prison sentences for sex offenders. The program takes former prisoners after they've served prison or juvenile sentences for sex crimes.

The 700-plus residents of the Minnesota Sex Offender Program have filed a class-action lawsuit against the state, contending their indefinite detention at facilities in St. Peter and Moose Lake isn't constitutional and doesn't provide adequate treatment.

A bench trial in the case started on Monday before U.S. District Court Judge Donovan Frank in St. Paul, and psychological experts have been testifying about the program for several days. Frank has been highly critical of the program in the past, calling it "clearly broken" in a ruling last year.

Jesson on Friday laid out a half dozen improvements her department had pursued administratively.

They included remodeling at the facilities, a request to the legislature for money to provide more facilities, bonding for a facility for a final stage of treatment, a bigger budget request and a request to provide more support from the state courts.

"We have been as responsive as we can be within the power and funding that we've had," Jesson testified.

She also said an administrative attempt to offer an alternative treatment program at a former state hospital in Cambridge, Minn., had faced stiff opposition, despite the low risk of clients her department planned to move there, including some in an assisted living program.

"We were taken aback by the community reaction," Jesson said in court.

That said, Jesson testified that her department's options were limited by state law, and that the Legislature would ultimately have to make the most important changes to the program if it was struck down in federal court.