List date(s) this work was published or aired.
June 26, 27, 28, 29 and July 3
Provide a brief synopsis of the story or stories, including any significant findings.
Despite spending nearly $400 million over the last few years alone, the state of Minnesota has never successfully treated a single high-risk sex offender — that is, they’ve never permanently released an offender from its prison-like confinement. The Minnesota Sex Offender Program, or MSOP, spends 3 1/2 times more on a “patient” than a state prison does an inmate, with costs continuing to rise. Many offenders confined to the MSOP for treatment now look at it instead as a death sentence. Indeed, many people have died there. And the number of people who are being confined the MSOP has skyrocketed in recent years.
Explain types of documents, data or Internet resources used. Were FOI or public records act requests required? How did this affect the work?
In addition to a state auditor’s report that criticized the MSOP, I did data requests for several sets of state records, including financing for the project, personnel records for current and former staff members, reviewed local police reports to gauge the level of violence at the facility, finding it to be more dangerous to live and work in than a state prison only a few hundred yards away. In addition, I reviewed reviewed hundreds, if not thousands of pages of court records to better understand why so many more sex offenders were being confined there.
Explain types of human sources used.
The state agency that runs the MSOP, the Department of Human Services, would not release any names of the patients confined to the program. However, using court records, I was able to compile a database of a few hundred of the inmates. From there, I was able to request interviews with a few of them. I also spoke with the MSOP administration at length, several legislators, attorneys who both represented and prosecuted the sex offenders, advocates for the offenders, current and former staff members, and the former clinical director of the program, who resigned in disgust after concluding that the MSOP wasn’t providing treatment, but rather punishment.
Results:
Since running the stories, little has changed with the program in that no offender has been released. And the public, it would seem, is quite ok with that. There is no public outcry to release the offenders. And yet there is outcry about the cost — they want something to be done to control that. The legislature has introduced bills in an attempt to transfer some of the offenders to lower security settings, though those bills seem to be stalling.
Follow-up (if any). Have you run a correction or clarification on the report or has anyone come forward to challenge its accuracy? If so, please explain.
No corrections were run for this series
Advice to other journalists planning a similar story or project.
I knew going in to this series that the average reader was automatically going to be repulsed by the men confined to the MSOP, so I had to start looking for areas that they would be interested: the cost to treat the offenders, that some have been confined as early as 18 and likely will never be released, that some offenders are in a high-security treatment area who have severe mental impairments that will never allow them to be treated. Essentially, the system is unfair and designed that way. I also wanted to make sure that I took as broad a look at this system as possible. This required dozens of records requests, hundreds of interviews, and numerous trips to the facility in Moose Lake, and the other in St. Peter, about four hours away from our newsroom.