The Dobbs Wire: Minnesota!
The Dobbs Wire: Minnesota! Great news out of Moose Lake, one of two spots where the scandalous Minnesota Sex Offense Program (MSOP) hums along and death is the easiest exit. Hundreds of individuals who already paid the price (a prison sentence) for a sexual offense are forced to pay another price — locked up indefinitely for dubious ‘treatment’ that never seems to end. A determined bunch inside got a hunger strike going, while outside organizing got rolling. Now state officials say they’re ready to talk! Kudos and congratulations to the guys who put their bodies on the line and all the organizers and allies. This ain’t over – they’ll need a lot of help getting a clear path home! Send hugs and solidarity to: endMSOP@gmail.com . Places like Moose Lake are constitutional and human rights nightmares, time to dismantle the laws that have 6,000 people held indefinitely around the country. Have a look at the news story and press release below.
–Bill Dobbs, The Dobbs Wire Drop us a line if you would like to join The Dobbs Wire email list or have something to say: info@thedobbswire.com Twitter: @thedobbswire
Minneapolis Star Tribune | February 4, 2021 3:35pm
Sex offenders at Moose Lake end 14-day hunger strike after reaching deal with state officials
DHS agrees to discuss a “clear pathway” for release from treatment center.
By Chris Serres, Star Tribune
A dozen men held at this sex offender treatment center in Moose Lake ended a 14-day hunger strike after state officials agreed to meet with the men and discuss their demand for a “clear pathway” for release from the program, which confines sex offenders indefinitely after they have completed their criminal sentences.
A group of men held at a sex offender treatment center in Moose Lake, Minn., have ended a two-week hunger strike, after state officials agreed to discuss possible changes to the program that holds offenders indefinitely past the end of their criminal sentences.
A dozen men who had stopped eating called off the hunger strike Wednesday night after Human Services Commissioner Jodi Harpstead offered to hold monthly meetings between the strikers and leaders of the state sex offender program.
The purpose of the meetings will be to discuss the strikers’ primary complaint: They have no “clear pathway” for release from the program and its prisonlike treatment centers in Moose Lake and St. Peter.
The strike was organized to protest Minnesota’s civil commitment system, which confines hundreds of rapists and other sexual offenders long after their prison terms. Some men have been held at the Moose Lake facility for years or even decades, effectively turning civil commitment into what they describe as a life sentence.
The strikers and other detainees maintain that the state program is more focused on warehousing offenders than treating them, and they have demanded that officials increase the program’s historically low rate of release.
The protest organizers had been refusing food since Jan. 21. Several of the men said in interviews that they were prepared to be hospitalized or starve to death if the state did not respond to their demands.
By early this week, the strikers reported feeling muscle pains, dizziness, nausea and rapid weight loss from lack of nourishment, according to organizers.
The men finally called off the protest and resumed eating after Harpstead offered to hold the monthly listening sessions, which are expected to begin this month and last through May.
Under the agreement, the Department of Human Services (DHS) will develop a report on the state sex offender program at the end of the discussions and produce recommendations. The agency has not made any commitments to specific changes.
“I am relieved that no one was seriously hurt or died, but this system of indefinite confinement has gone on far too long,” said Merry Schoon of Appleton, Minn., whose 33-year-old son, Daniel A. Wilson, is being held at Moose Lake. “These men have families and they deserve a second chance to be productive members of society just like everyone else.”
Starting a dialogue
Tensions have been building for years over the prolonged confinements at the Minnesota Sex Offender Program (MSOP) treatment centers, but frustrations reached a boiling point in recent months following a large outbreak of COVID-19 at the Moose Lake facility.
Three men have died at the Moose Lake center since early December, and dozens more clients and staff were sickened. Some men maintain the program did not move fast enough to mandate mask-wearing, and complained that strict lockdown measures kept them confined in their rooms for nearly 24 hours a day.
As of Thursday, no active cases of COVID-19 were reported among clients at any MSOP location.
Last Sunday, about 20 relatives of the hunger strikers and other supporters took the unusual step of showing up at Harpstead’s home. Two days later, she met with members of the group via Zoom and listened to their concerns.
In a written statement, Harpstead said she agreed to the discussions “out of concern that some of the strikers would cause themselves serious harm,” and because she believed that “no harm will come from us listening” to the men and their families.
“The strikers have asked for a clearer pathway to release,” Harpstead said. “In the meantime, we continue to believe that the most persuasive argument that any MSOP client can make when petitioning the court for discharge is meaningful, engaged participation in treatment.”
Only 13 offenders have been fully released, without conditions mandating supervision, in the 27-year history of Minnesota’s sex offender program. By comparison, participants in the hunger strike said they have counted at least 86 men who have died while in custody.
In 2015, a federal judge in St. Paul declared the program unconstitutional, concluding it was holding offenders who had completed treatment and no longer met the state’s criteria for commitment. Though later reversed, the ruling gave hope to offenders seeking a way out of confinement, and more of them began petitioning for release or reduction in custody.
DHS officials have repeatedly stressed that the agency has limited control over who is released from the program. Under Minnesota’s civil commitment law, offenders have a right to petition state judicial panels for release or a reduction in custody.
“Only the courts have the authority to decide when a client may be provisionally or fully discharged from the program,” Harpstead said. “The only promise I can make is that we will engage in conversation with clients and their families.”
State officials also have disputed the hunger strikers’ assertion that they do not have a clear pathway out of the program, pointing to figures showing that record numbers of clients have been approved for release by judicial panels.
Last year, 11 men were conditionally discharged from the program after they petitioned for a reduction in custody — the most since the program’s inception, according to DHS officials.
All told, 30 MSOP clients who have been granted provisional discharge by the court are living in communities under the state’s supervision.
Even so, Minnesota detains more offenders per capita than any of the 20 states that have civil commitment laws, and is third behind California and Florida in the total number of committed offenders, according to a 2019 national survey of such programs.
The cost of operating Minnesota’s sex offender program — including treating, housing and providing medical care for offenders at the two facilities — totaled $93.2 million in fiscal year 2020, according to a legislative report.
Chris Serres covers social services for the Star Tribune. Chris Serres • 612-673-4308 • chris.serres@startribune.com • Twitter: @chrisserres
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 1.26.2021
Contact OCEAN Co-Founders Russell Hatton, Daniel Wilson in MSOP: 218-351-1900, ex 70887 or ex 106021
Coalition Contact: David Boehnke, dboehnke@gmail.com, 651-315-4222
Men on Hunger Strike for “Clear Path Home” from Indefinite Detention
MOOSE LAKE, MN–Eleven men at the MN Sex Offender Program (MSOP) are on hunger strike for “a clear path home” from indefinite detention in facilities where “treatment is a death sentence”.
According to a detainee group OCEAN (Overcoming Corruption Empowering All Nations), 86 men have died since the program started in 1994, while only 12 have been fully released, due to legal challenges. The program has two sites, in Moose Lake, and St Peter, Minnesota.
Mike Whipple, on hunger strike since last Thursday, explained his struggle for freedom: “It was my understanding that I was to do the treatment, then be released. After 12 years later I’m still here, doing the same thing, over and over and over.”
Russell Hatton, another striker, goes further, calling their mental health diagnosis “fraudulent” noting such confinement has been condemned by the American Psychological Association. Recent national research indicates racial minorities and LGBTQ people are twice as likely to be indefinitely detained in this way.
According to the Department of Human Services, who oversee the program, 737 men are currently held indefinitely, at a cost of 96 million dollars for 2021, a daily cost of $393 per person, per day.
On the DHS website it says MSOP “serves people who are court-ordered to receive sex offender treatment. After prison sentences are complete, courts may civilly commit individuals and place them in sex offender treatment for an unspecified period of time”.
It is this “unspecified” length that the men object to most, saying it is in fact a “death sentence”. According to striker Daniel Wilson: “there is not even a policy on file for a graduation ceremony procedure. However….staff have even been putting up pictures of the deceased men on the wall to make sure that all are aware that another man has ‘graduated’ the program.”
Families too, bear the burden of indefinite detention. “It’s been years since he should have been home” says Merry Schoon, mother of a hunger striker.
But to her, it isn’t just about those inside now: “This could happen to anybody’s kid. If we don’t stand up, anyone’s kids could be locked up forever for a so-called ‘mental illness’. This program needs to end, we need our children to come home.”
MSOP families, ex-staff, and human rights organizations have created the End MSOP coalition to support these men coming home. They are circulating a petition, with an action coming up this Sunday. They can be contacted at endMSOP@gmail.com or facebook.com/endMSOP.
Audio / Previous Articles
- Listen to men speaking from inside MSOP about why they are taking action: Mike Whipple, Joshua Brooks, Peter Allan.
- For more info see recent Star Tribune article, and a 2015 article by the New York Times Editorial Board.
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Shame on Minnesota for making it come to this. But good for all those citizens (I repeat “citizens”) for standing up for their God given rights!
“Willing to hold monthly discussions” doesn’t sound like much of a victory to me. From my own time in prison, I can say that response is basically saying “Nothing will change but we’ll let you vent once in a while and pretend to be sympathetic.”
And I still say the claim that inmates – excuse me, clients – are “being released in record numbers” is pretty disingenuous. From 0 in 25 years to less than 30 since a federal judge finally found it unconstitutional (sheer coincidence, I’m sure), most under restrictions probably devised to ensure their return to the prison – I beg your pardon, “treatment facility” – isn’t exactly parting the Red Sea.
Almost nothing gets accomplished in this country without resorting to lawsuits and or physical means.
You don’t even know who the sex offenders are, “Jimmy Benjamin.” You haven’t figured out who is and who is not a sex offender because you don’t get it. What are you hiding that you are so ashamed of?
Bill, just saw this for the 1st time (a tad late, I know), but I wanted to thank you and say you wrote a well written story!
-Sara
EndMSOP activist