State officials are pushing back against a series of proposed reforms to Minnesota’s troubled sex offender program ahead of a high-profile court hearing next week.
Citing concerns about costs, staff shortages and community opposition, administrators of the program argued in court filings this week against reforms that could accelerate the release of sex offenders from the Minnesota Sex Offender Program (MSOP). The program currently holds about 720 sex offenders indefinitely at secure treatment centers in Moose Lake and St. Peter. In June, U.S. District Court Judge Donovan Frank declared the program unconstitutional and called on state leaders to propose reforms or face solutions imposed by the court. Full Article
What a lame and tone-deaf argument. As if cost and community opposition are valid reasons for denying an unpopular group of people their human and civil rights. The state went through the expense of locking these people up based on little more than panic and conjecture, then they say it’s too costly to try to sift through the people they are continuing to unconstitutionally detain?
Please. When the schools were forcibly desegregated in the South there was community opposition based on fear, hate, and ignorance as well. That didn’t make it any less of a constitutional and moral imperative to follow through with it.
What I’ve noticed in many court filings in SORA cases is that the government’s got no ground left to stand on beyond pounding the table and frothing at the mouth. The emperor’s got no clothes on, ladies and gents. And it’s starting to show.