Minnesota spends over $100 million per year to prevent sexual violence through its Sex Offense Civil Commitment program (SOCC).
In tandem with a new report issued by the Sex Offense Litigation & Policy Resource Center at the Mitchell Hamline School of Law, which casts doubt on the efficacy of the program, legal scholars, criminal justice reform groups, and others are asking Minnesota to sunset the civil commitment program and allocate its annual budget toward evidence-based programs that they claim will be more effective in reducing sexual violence.
“Why now?” asked Eric Janus, president and dean emeritus of Mitchell Hamline School of Law. “Because it’s been 30 years. It’s time.”
Janus now serves at the director of the Sex Offense Litigation & Policy Resource Center. The center gathers and shares data on sexual violence policy cases, fostering collaboration among lawyers, advocates, and scholars to develop effective strategies and promote sensible public policies for preventing sexual violence.
On April 24, the center announced a new report , in progress for almost two years, that came out of an organization called the $100 Million Committee, an informal group of people who have expressed concerns about the civil commitment program, also known as the Minnesota Sex Offender Program (MSOP). They have been discussing how the money that goes toward the program could be reinvested to other crime prevention.
The report makes several key findings, the major one being that SOCC has “no discernible impact” on the reduction of sex crimes. It also states that Minnesota’s focus on primary preventionin other words, stopping sexual harm before it occursaccounts for less than 2% of SOCC’s funding.
The report finds that Minnesota is distinct in its SOCC program, in that most states do not use SOCC at all. Among those that do, Minnesota commits the most people per capita.
As of Sept. 1, 2023, out of the 946 individuals placed in MSOP over its 30-year span, only 21 have been completely discharged, while at least 94 have died during their confinement. Thus, the report concludes, one is nearly five times more likely to die in the program than to be released from it.
The report asserts that in Minnesota, the SOCC operates essentially as a “life sentence” without needing to find the person guilty or provide them the due process protections of the criminal justice system.
“A real civil commitment program is that you put people in a treatment program, you provide some effective treatment, and then a good proportion of them are released. And that hasn’t happened, of course, in Minnesota,” Janus said.
Some argue that the report confirms what they have previously known of the program. Former Minnesota Chief Justice Eric Magnuson, who chaired the Sex Offender Civil Commitment Advisory Task Force more than a decade ago, said that the Task Force determined that Minnesota’s civil commitment scheme was “dangerously overbroad” and captured “too many people for too long” in violation of public safety and civil rights.
“Today, this report shows in painstaking detail how those and other problems have only worsened, and makes the urgent case for sunsetting Minnesota's failed experiment with Sex Offense Civil Commitment,” Magnuson said.
Daniel Repka , attorney at Repka Law LLC, who handles civil commitment cases, says that the results of the report do not surprise him.
“Many of my clients feel a sense of hopelessness at MSOP due to the lack of institutional progress available to them. The treatment staff at MSOP turnover regularly, which means clients very rarely benefit from continuity of care. This usually results in stagnation of care and treatment,” said Repka.
“Simply stated, MSOP is a place of exile,” Repka added. “The government has very little difficulty in convincing a court to commit a person based on the low burden of proof and the relaxed rules of evidence. The numbers prove that, once you’re committed, it’s unlikely you will ever be fully discharged.”
Additionally, two organizations representing survivors of violence support the findings of the report. Minnesota Coalition Against Sexual Assault and Violence Free Minnesota issued a joint statement, in which they asserted that “the $100 million that the State spends on MSOP does not effectively prevent sexual violence nor prioritize the needs of victims/survivors” and that the funding is in “stark contrast to the less than $3 million spent on primary prevention of sexual violence every year.”
In response, Minnesota Department of Human Services, which oversees the program, says that it is “always open to discussion about ways to enhance treatment at the Minnesota Sex Offender Program (MSOP).” It pushes back on the findings, alleging that “little in the report focuses on treatment at MSOP.”
“MSOP follows the most current standards and best practices and is a recognized leader in sex-offense specific treatment. Public safety is at the heart of everything we do. The program is dedicated to providing the therapeutic guidance and tools clients need to break engrained patterns of behavior, make meaningful change, and reduce their risk of re-offense,” Minnesota DHS added.
“Minnesota’s uniquely aggressive civil commitment program threatens basic constitutional rights while exacerbating the very problem it is intended to solve,” said Janus.
“The only real solution is a careful and orderly wind-down of the program,” Janus avowed.
Related:
Sex Offense Civil Commitment Report
Breaking the Ice: Work and rewards in civil commitment law
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