The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog

"It just knocks me over," Senate Capital Investment Committee Chairman Keith Langseth, DFL-Glyndon, said of the prison and state hospital budget requests.

The two departments are asking for more prison cells and secure hospital rooms to house expected increases in inmates and sex offenders who are committed to mental institutions after serving prison sentences.

Last year, Minnesota had the fastest-growing prison population of any state. It shot up 13 percent from 2003, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics.

Since 1999, the state's prison population has increased about 45 percent, from 5,766 inmates to 8,333 in 2004, said Dennis Benson, deputy state corrections commissioner. The department projects the number of inmates will grow an additional 33 percent, to 11,049, by 2010.

Asked what's driving prison population growth, Benson replied: "Probably more than anything, about 16 years of sentencing policy changes on the part of the Minnesota Legislature to increase sentences."

Prison terms for sex crimes and drug crimes were lengthened dramatically, Benson said. The "methamphetamine epidemic" has produced a stunning increase in prisoners.

More crimes are being solved by new DNA testing and other techniques, he said. Prosecutors are more aggressive, society is less tolerant of crime and "Minnesota is a bigger place."

Another factor is a dramatic increase in the number of people returning to prison after being released, said Sen. Jane Ranum, DFL-Minneapolis, chairwoman of a public safety budget committee. The recidivism rate is rising in part because of what she characterized as inadequate state funding for supervision of released inmates, treatment for chemical dependency and mental illness, and crime-prevention programs.

But the underlying reason more prison space is needed is that state officials have decided to lock up more criminals, said House Public Safety Committee Chairman Steve Smith, R-Mound, the chief sponsor of a 2005 law that increases sentences for sex offenders and other violent criminals. He predicted Minnesotans would "rise to the occasion" to provide more space and better security at prisons for inmates, staff and visitors.

Sen. Linda Berglin, DFL-Minneapolis, says more convicted sex offenders are being committed to state hospitals because of fallout from "the Rodriguez case." She was referring to Alfonso Rodriguez Jr., a registered sex offender charged with kidnapping and murdering Dru Sjodin in late 2003, after he was released from prison.

"That's the most expensive mistake state government has made in some time," said Berglin, chairwoman of the budget committee that oversees state hospitals.

Since then, state corrections officials, county attorneys and judges have been sending more sex offenders to hospitals after they are released from prison. Before that policy change, state hospitals were admitting about 18 sex offenders a year. Now, they are taking in about 60 new sex offenders each year, and that number might grow, said Wes Kooistra, assistant state human services commissioner.

The Human Services Department projects the hospitals' sex-offender population will increase from the current 306 patients to 500 by 2011. The hospitals need more secure facilities to house those patients.

Here are the biggest capital budget requests by the Corrections and Human Services departments. Both Benson and Kooistra cautioned that these are preliminary figures that could change this fall:

• $41.5 million to expand the Faribault state prison, increasing its capacity from 1,941 inmates to 2,286. That would be on top of an $85 million expansion there approved this spring.

• $18.6 million to build a new 150-bed segregation unit at Stillwater prison to house extremely high-risk, violent and dangerous inmates.

• $8.8 million for a 92-bed expansion at the Shakopee women's prison.

• $44 million to build a 150-bed secure facility for sex offenders and dangerous mentally ill patients at the St. Peter state hospital.

• $25 million to provide 50 additional beds for the sex-offender treatment program at Moose Lake state hospital.

Both Langseth and Rep. Dan Dorman, R-Albert Lea, the chairman of the House Capital Investment Committee, said lawmakers will be hard-pressed to fund all those projects. They estimated the 2006 Legislature would be able to finance $700 million to $900 million in construction projects. That would fund less than one-third of the $2.5 billion to $3 billion in building requests they expect.

With Corrections and Human Services seeking a "far bigger share" of the capital budget, Langseth said, "that will put a squeeze on other, very good investments," such as college and university buildings, parks and trails, water-conservation projects, and mass transit.

Nonetheless, he expects heavy political pressure for the prison and hospital projects. "If you don't fund them, you're called soft on crime," he said. "Each party thinks it has to one-up the other on being tough on crime."

It's not just politics, Dorman said. Lawmakers have an obligation to house the people put away by their policy changes. "If we're going to get tough on crime, somebody's got to be responsible at the other end for providing places to lock more people up," he said.

Gov. Tim Pawlenty has not examined those budget requests or decided which projects to recommend to the Legislature, said Brian McClung, the governor's press secretary. Pawlenty will propose a capital budget by Jan. 15.

Though Minnesota has the fastest-growing prison population in the nation, it still ranks second-to-last in percentage of its population incarcerated.

Last year, the state locked up 169 inmates per 100,000 in population, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. Only Maine, with 149 inmates per 100,000 residents, had a lower incarceration rate. The average rate for all states was 433 per 100,000 in population.

The recent surge in Minnesota's population does not signal a trend toward becoming more like other states, Smith said. The state will continue to divert the vast majority of offenders to supervision by local probation officers.

There's one exception to that rule, he said. "This year, we made a 180-degree turn on our policy toward sex offenders."

While Minnesota's crime-related construction costs are going up, the state remains the envy of criminal justice officials across the nation for holding down its incarceration rate, said Scott Thornsley, a criminologist at Mansfield University in Pennsylvania and an expert on prison population trends.

"Minnesota is probably, and unfortunately, catching up to the rest of the nation," Thornsley said. "But your state officials shouldn't be criticized for that. They've done an unbelievable job in keeping your state inmate population as low as it is. Other states are still looking at the kinds of diversionary programs that Minnesota has already done."

© 2005 St. Paul Pioneer Press and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved.
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