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: 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. In a February ruling, using words like “draconian” and “broken,” Judge Frank raised questions about MSOP’s constitutionality and asked legislators to address his concerns during the 2014 session. Legislators failed to come up with a plan to fix the program, so Frank and a four-person panel of experts are reviewing each case of civil commitment in the state. The panel is also putting together a broader report on the program due out at the end of the summer. Article continues after advertisement
Who is Eric Terhaar? Terhaar is likely to be the first person ever fully released from the program, and represents a particularly vexing part of the program: