How Do Our Neighboring States Handle Sex Offenders?

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) - For more than two decades, Minnesota's most dangerous sex offenders have been locked up a second time after serving prison sentences. They've been committed to indefinite detention in treatment programs.

Now, more than 700 sex offenders are suing the state saying that's unconstitutional.

So we wondered: How do our neighboring states handle sex offenders? Do they get out? And what happens when they do?

Seven-hundred-and-nine of Minnesota's worst sex offenders call Moose Lake or St. Peter's treatment programs home.

Two have been granted provisional release in the civil commitment program's 20-year history.

But when WCCO checked neighboring states, we found big differences in how they deal with their most dangerous sex offenders.

Wisconsin has 361 sex offenders in its civil commitment program right now.  Iowa has 101 and North Dakota has 59.

So, put together, the states have fewer sex offenders civilly committed than Minnesota.

Over 20 years in Wisconsin, offenders have been discharged or put on supervised release 214 times. Some wear electronic monitors and receive treatment.  In Iowa, 20 have left with GPS monitoring and in North Dakota 33 have been allowed out.

Eric Janus has challenged the constitutionality of Minnesota's civil commitment program since its inception.

"Absolutely, other states are doing this better," Janus said.

Now the Dean of William Mitchell College of Law, he's authored a book on sex offender laws.

"We don't put people in prison in anticipation of a crime," Janus said. "We put them in prison in punishment of a crime."

Janus believes statistics show highly supervised release programs are successful. In New York, 220 sex offenders have been released from civil commitment. In five years, four were convicted of sex crimes.

Closer to home in Wisconsin, when 67 offenders were released in a 16-year period, five were convicted of another sex crime.

"There's no solution that's zero risk," Janus said. "We do not live in a zero risk society."

Janus said those recidivism rates are relatively low, though he understands that, for victims, they are much too high. But he believes the conversation needs to move past that and instead Minnesota should manage these people at a much lower cost.

"I think it would be very wise for the state to take those steps and try to get a step ahead of the court," Janus said.

Minnesotans pay about $130,000 a year to keep a sex offender civilly committed.  A federal judge's decision about the future of the program is expected later this year.  States that don't commit sex offenders say between 5 percent to 15 percent of them offend again.