Title: $175,000 per offender? Get-tough sex predator 'treatment' busts state budgets - cleveland.com
Headings: $175,000 per offender? Get-tough sex predator 'treatment' busts state budgets
$175,000 per offender? Get-tough sex predator 'treatment' busts state budgets
'Lock everybody up'
No idea of the costs
Treatment only slightly lowers risk
Recommitting Dennis Linehan
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Content: Nebraska has released just one person since 2006. Texas has yet to release anyone from its outpatient program. That compares with states like California, which has put nearly 200 offenders back into the community, and New Jersey, where 123 have been let go. At least 62 sex offenders have died while confined in six states that tracked such deaths. Minnesota's law was passed in 1994 after the state Supreme Court overturned the commitment of Dennis Linehan, a repeat sex offender who had served 27 years in prison for kidnapping a 14-year-old babysitter found strangled in 1965. Recommitting Dennis Linehan
After public outrage, Gov. Arne Carlson called the Legislature into a one-day special session to broaden the civil commitment statute. Linehan was swiftly recommitted. The program grew steadily over the next decade, then exploded after the 2003 abduction and slaying of Dru Sjodin, a 22-year-old North Dakota college student, by a Minnesota sex offender. The suspect, Alfonso Rodriguez Jr., had been freed after finishing a 23-year sentence for an attempted abduction. Prison authorities did not recommend civil commitment.