Source: chronicletimes.com 8/31/23
Officials with the Iowa Department of Correctional Services have expressed concern over a disproportionate share of sex offenders from the Civil Commitment Unit for Sex Offenders being discharged in Cherokee and surrounding counties.
Maureen Hansen, director of the DOCS’s third judicial district, told the Buena Vista County Board of Supervisors last month a “concerning development” is CCUSO patient discharges to the area “where they otherwise wouldn’t be connected.” Hansen acknowledged to the supervisors some of the patients that have either been discharged or nearing discharge from the civil commitment unit have no connection with the area.
“I don’t think it’s fair for our judicial district, our community, that just because CCUSO is in our district, and (patients) graduate, that they want to stay in this area,” Hansen told the board of supervisors on Tuesday. “They don’t have any other connection to this area other than employment and knowing some other CCUSO releasees in the area.”
Hansen conveyed her concerns to a conference of chief judicial officers in Des Moines last spring. She asked the judges to consider sending CCUSO graduates to their original county of commitment rather than the Cherokee area, where many currently reside. Hansen told the Cherokee County Board of Supervisors last month that many patients end up working at Tyson Foods plants in the area. (Hansen noted a former CCUSO patient is under the supervision of the third judicial district in Buena Vista County, meaning the patient was released within the year.) An estimate of CCUSO patients in Cherokee County wasn’t provided.
To date, 27 patients have been released from CCUSO since its inception in the late 1990s. Even more are in transitional release, meaning they have graduated from the civil commitment unit’s five-phase treatment program and are awaiting total release. Transitional release candidates are tasked with finding jobs in Cherokee and surrounding areas–many of them like it.
Hence the growing sex offender population in Northwest Iowa.
Similar struggle happened in Wisconsin when the civil commitment facility was first set up. They continued to rearrange the deck chairs until they made it nearly impossible for anyone to find suitable housing, finally requiring the committing county to be responsible for housing. Total disaster.
Would be nice if someone would finally have the courage to call these programs what they are – continued incarceration.
Hotel California is now Hotel Hell across the country in ” treatment” centers aka private prisons where you enter but very few ever leave. Only 27 people have graduated since the ” treatment” started, sounds like a disaster to me. Iowa you still stand for Idiots Out Wandering Around.
“I don’t think it’s fair for our judicial district, our community, that just because CCUSO is in our district, and (patients) graduate, that they want to stay in this area,” Hansen told the board of supervisors on Tuesday. “They don’t have any other connection to this area other than employment and knowing some other CCUSO releasees in the area.”
But you have no problem with these ‘graduates’ filling up your prison located far away from family & friends where they do have connections.
“Hansen told the Cherokee County Board of Supervisors last month that many patients end up working at Tyson Foods plants in the area”
Oh for God’s sake! It’s a chicken slaughterhouse. No one else will do that filthy bloody work. Unless you expect Tyson to hire a bunch of illegals and create another Postville, Iowa scandal.