This session is eligible for 1.0 Standard CLE credit and Social Work CEUs.

To receive continuing education credits, purchase the appropriate ticket and you will receive access to the password projected video online. For legal practitioners seeking CLE credit, take note of the keyword that will appear in the video. When you are done viewing the video, submit the keyword to info@mnjrc.org and you will receive the code you need to claim your CLE.

About this session:

This session was part of the MNJRC's 2023 Re-Imagining Justice Conference. To learn more about the annual conference, please visit: https://www.mnjrc.org/re-imagining-justice-conference

Minnesota currently spends over $100 Million annually on the indefinite detention of approximately 740 people at the Minnesota Sex Offender Program (“MSOP”) through a form of preventive detention referred to as sex offense civil commitment (“SOCC”). SOCC, enacted in its current form in the 1990s, is indefinite detention applied to individuals who have been assessed to present a risk of future harm.

A central feature of Minnesota’s SOCC law is that it is specifically aimed at confining people after they have completed their criminal sentences. The “dangerousness” determinations are based on risk assessment algorithms created to estimate the likelihood of a future offense based on an individual’s prior history and personal characteristics. However, these risk assessment tools assign individuals to risk groups; when used to assign risk levels to an individual, they have high rates of error.

The harsh reality is that instead of making us safer, our attempts to predict future crime have created a new form of incarceration, disproportionately confining people of color, gay people, and transgender people, based on inaccurate assessments of what they might do at some point in the future. Inviting active discussion, this panel session seeks to introduce the harms of Minnesota’s system of sex offense civil commitment and collectively imagine a reallocation of the $100 Million investment to maximize its impact and create a measurable reduction in sexual violence statewide.

Panelists:

--Eric S. Janus, JD, President and Dean Emeritus at Mitchell Hamline School of Law and Director, Sex Offense Litigation and Policy Resource Center (SOLPRC)

--Peter Dross, Vice President of External Relations at the Center for Victims of Torture

Confronting MN Sex Offense Civil Commitment: Moving Away From Fear-based Policies, Toward Effective Community Violence Prevention (CLE)