The below is OCEAN Newsletter Volume 1, Issue 4, Article 3 (Oct. 12, 2019) published by Russell J. Hatton & Daniel A. Wilson from the gulag in Moose Lake Minnesota.
MSOP’s application of psychology has been a failure. Instead of treating mental illness and releasing clients, it has killed many people. The amount of people that have died while in the care of Peter Puffer, Nancy Johnston, Jannine Hebert and all their minions, compared to those that have received treatment for their “mental Illness”, is staggering. After the recent deaths of Bruce Foley and Robert Scott, the MSOP body count is now at 75 and the amount of those that have been released by completing treatment? 1, and the reason for that one man’s release is still debatable. 5 others were released, but not for completing treatment. Instead, they were men who only offended while they were still children and should have never been civilly committed in the first place. But why should the average Minnesotan care? After all, MSOP holds “Sex Offenders” until they die, right? What’s wrong with that? We understand. However, OCEAN would like to argue why Minnesotans should care and we
have given 3 reasons:
1) IT DOESN’T WORK: First, the tests used to determine who is too dangerous to be released don’t work.1 Second, Dr. Daniel Montaldi former Administrator of the Sexually Violent Predator Program in Florida, says, ” … at least 94% – 96% of sexual crimes could not have been prevented by commitment … commitment has prevented less than 1 % of all reported sex offending that would have otherwise occurred.” 2 In addition, locking up a sex offender for life, without announcing it to the public, cannot act as a deterrent to potential offenders. Because MSOP is so stealthy about its intended purpose, keeping the pubic in the dark, that it cannot operate as an example to those who may be considering the option to sexually assault someone. Without either acting as a warning to others, or preventing a reoffense, it cannot be considered “preventative.”
2) IT IS TOO EXPENSIVE: Dr. Montaldi also says, ” .. .if there is any difference in treatment, outpatient treatment might be superior. Certainly it is less expensive for taxpayers. At this point, no evidence shows that state expenditure on inpatient treatment in a secure civil facility is achieving its intended purpose.”3 Ruben Rosario from the St. Paul Pioneer Press says that at $124,465 a year, housing one sex offender costs the tax payer three times the cost of a prison inmate.4 As of June 30, 2019 there were 731 men civilly committed in Minnesota. Using the information provided by Mr. Rosario this amounts to approximately $90,983,915 that the tax payers are paying to house sex offenders until they are dead, even though convicted sex offenders have among the lowest rates of same-crime recidivism of any category of offender. Some may have heard ridiculous stats that 80% of sex offenders recidivate. However, that is an entirely invented number. It came from a Psychology Today article published in 1986 by a treatment provider who had no business claiming to know anything about sex offender recidivism rates. In fact, one study by the federal government followed every offender in the United States for three years and found that only 3.5% recidivated.5 One critic sums it up for us, ” … Such low recidivism rate[s] undermines the state’s authority to confine these persons under the rationale that they are too dangerous to be released. “6
3) MSOP SETS A PRECEDENT THAT OPENS THE DOOR FOR EVERYDAY PEOPLE TO BECOME CONFINED TO PRISON FOR NO GOOD REASON: 12% of the men civilly committed at MSOP either have NO felony record at all, or their record is “unknown.”7 at the time of this statistic, there were less people committed to MSOP. However, if we compare the stat to the current population of 731 civil detainees, that’s approximately 87 people indefinitely incarcerated for crimes they “might” commit, even though they have no criminal record. This is a significant amount of collateral damage.
To get civilly committed in Minnesota, it is not necessary to prove that a person is out of control, or that he is physically violent, but only that he was emotionally harmful to others. In court, hearsay is admissible. Allegations are admissible. Self-disclosed crimes, even made as part of treatment, are admissible. A sex offense conviction is not necessary and the person being considered for commitment does not have a right to a trial. 8 The conditions that currently exist are ripe for mass incarceration. This is not conspiracy theory, but a reminder of what mankind’s sinful nature is capable of. Let’s not forget: our founding fathers built this government in response to a corrupt government. One day, the government will have the ability to lock up whomever they please based on the interfacing of crime and mental illness. Sex crimes have been the model because they are hated so much by the public already. However, it could just as well be drug offenders for instance, who are already facing death by the authorities in the Philippines-why not America? But it likely would not be drug offenders here.
Instead it will be those with “mental illness.” With all of the mass shootings, and the uproar of the public to treat “mental illness” who’s to say that that particular demographic is not threatened with mass incarceration?
Executive Order No. 9066 that incarcerated thousands of Japanese-American people, despite harsh backlash, was never overturned and could be used to justify the incarceration of different sub-groups of people for whatever the government feels is serious enough. This law, coupled with the merging of crime and mental illness, has the potential to lock anyone up. 9 I know this all sounds ridiculous, but Justice Antonin Scalia warned that internment could be upheld in the future: “[Y]ou are kidding yourself if you think the same thing will not happen again . .. ” 10 These are strong words from a very influential person that only a fool would ignore. Melissa Hamilton from Pace University sums up the concern:
Fear of sexual predators has lead society to adopt a law-psychiatry interface in which sexual offending is merged into disease based philosophy to justify various forms of punishment and preventative control . . . The widespread acceptance of mental disorders for sexual deviance, despite [the] substantial scientific problems, ignores significant issues of due process and equity considering they help dictate infringements on fundamental interests of defendants . . . The collaboration threatens not only the liberty and privacy interests of those who commit sex-based offenses. The potential exists for a contagion effect whereby interest groups might be encouraged to qualify all manner of criminal behaviors as distinct mental disorders. Accordingly, if the interaction between law and psychiatry continues in this manner, all criminals may be deemed to have mental disorders. This outcome makes no logical sense, undermines the core tenets of the law, infringes upon fundamental rights, and methodically destroys trust in the science of psychiatry.
FOOTNOTES
1 Melisa Hamilton. “Adjudicating Sex Crimes as Mental Disease.” 33 Pace L. Rev. 536, Spring Is. 2013, © 2013 Pace University School of Law: p 7
2 Montaldi, Daniel PhD, A Study of the Efficacy of the Sexually Violent Predator Act in Florida, William Mitchell Law Review, 2015, Vol. 43:1 pp 804, 853
3 Ibid. at p 842
4 Ruban Rosario. “This Judge Believes Even Sex Offenders Have Rights” Pioneer Press, rrosario@pioneerpress.com
5 David Feige. “When Junk Science About Sex Offenders Infects the Supreme Court.”The New York Times, 12 Sept. 2017
6 Tamara Rice Lave & Franklin E. Zimring. “Assessing the Real Risk of Sexually Violent Predators” Doctor Padilla’s Dangerouss Date.” Berkeley Law, 2018 pp 709, 710 htps://scholarship/.law.berkely.edu/facpubs
7 James R. Nobles, Evaluation Report, Civil Commitment of Sex Offenders, Mar. 2011, OLA auditor@state.mn.us www.auditor.legstate.mn.us. (651) 296-4708 p 7
8 lbid. pp 24-26
9 Sunstein, Cass R. Can it Happen Here? HarperCollins Publishers, © 2018 p 313
10 Ibid. at p 321
“The right to be free from confinement is of the very essence of a scheme of ordered liberty.” –Palko v.
Connecticut, 302 U.S. 319, 325 (1937)
