State budget crunches offer hope to Hawkeye

MOOSE LAKE, Minn. – Just off the highway leading to this woodsy Minnesota town, more than 400 men live behind tall fences topped with razor wire. They spend their days shuffling between meals, group therapy sessions and activities such as painting state park signs.

The men are sex offenders who have completed their prison sentences. But because they are still considered dangerous, they have been locked away indefinitely — part of a national trend that began when states were flush with cash.

Now these "civil commitment" programs are costing states hundreds of millions of dollars more than anyone envisioned, and they've created a political quandary for lawmakers who need to cut spending but don't want to be seen as soft on rapists and child molesters.

A nationwide Associated Press analysis found that the 20 states with civil commitment laws will spend nearly $500 million this year alone to lock up and treat 5,200 offenders.

The annual costs per offender topped out at $175,000 in New York and $173,000 in California, and averaged $96,000 a year, about double what it would cost to send them to an Ivy League university. In some states, like Minnesota, sex offender treatment costs more than five times more than keeping offenders in prison. And those estimates do not include the considerable legal expenses necessary to commit someone.

In many places, treatment costs are up sharply since 2005, raising doubts about whether the system is still worthwhile in an era of ruthless budget cuts brought on by the recession.

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