Title: The Minnesota Sex Offender Program, explained | MinnPost
Headings: The Minnesota Sex Offender Program, explained
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The Minnesota Sex Offender Program, explained
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Briana Bierschbach

Content: Wait, so nobody has ever gotten out of MSOP? Not unconditionally. One person, Clarence Opheim, was provisionally released from the program in 2012, but is still under the state watch in a halfway house. Opheim first went to prison in 1988 for molesting an 11-year-old boy, and later admitted to molesting 29 children. How much does the program cost taxpayers? The program will cost about $81 million during the 2015 fiscal year. It costs about $120,000 per offender for housing and treatment each year — or about three times what it costs to house the average prison inmate in Minnesota. Why is everyone talking about this now? MSOP is under intense scrutiny thanks to a federal class action lawsuit filed on behalf of all clients in the program. The suit alleges that MSOP unconstitutionally confines clients receiving treatment — with no hope of ever getting out.