By Mark Fischenich
The Free Press
MANKATO — For the Minnesota Department of Corrections, it’s probably their most unpopular duty — unlocking the cell door. But it’s also not an optional one.
When imprisoned felons’ release date arrives, the department has no choice under the law but to cut them loose. State law also sets up a system aimed at boosting the odds that offenders who are considered most at risk to commit new crimes get special attention and supervision.
The Intensive Supervised Release program puts those high-risk offenders into a community setting with conditions that include house arrest; electronic monitoring; 40 hours a week of work, school or treatment; and frequent and unannounced visits by Department of Corrections agents.
If the offender has a family member willing to take them in or another appropriate living arrangement, that’s where the ISR program is conducted. For inmates who don’t have a place to go, DOC must find a place for them to live so that the program can be implemented. The only alternative is releasing them on the street.
“We try to find housing for offenders who would otherwise be homeless,” said Ron Solheid, deputy commissioner for community services at the DOC.
Part of the motivation for doing that is to maintain that intense supervision that the high-risk offenders particularly require, a task that’s all-but impossible if the released inmate is homeless, Solheid said.
And Solheid rejects the suggestion by Mankato city officials that a property on Record Street, leased in April by the DOC to house up to five ISR offenders, was set up to serve offenders from a broad area of south-central Minnesota. Offenders are returned to their home community whenever possible, even if it means DOC agents must travel long distances to smaller cities and towns to provide the mandated supervision.
There may be cases where offenders from rural areas are relocated to larger cities after prison because of job opportunities, but it isn’t happening with any frequency in Mankato, said Mark Bliven, director of risk assessment and community notification for the department.
“The issue is not quite as large as it’s made out to be,” Bliven said. “Perhaps it’s out of fear or anticipation of something that might happen in the future.”
The department wants to put offenders where they have the best chance to succeed, and that’s typically where they have family or other community connections, according to the DOC.
As for Mankato’s plan to amend city ordinances to tightly restrict where ISR housing can be located in the city, Solheid and Bliven said it will be counterproductive.
“The housing restriction concept is a very popular-type reaction,” Bliven said. “It’s really kind of a solution in search of a problem that doesn’t exist.”
He points to the common restriction that offender housing must be a certain distance from day care facilities. An honest look at criminal offenses occurring at day cares shows that it’s people associated with the facility who commit the crimes.
“Not somebody who lives across the street who walks into the day care,” Bliven said.
A 2007 study of sex offenders re-offending after their release showed that very rarely did the crimes have any connection to the neighborhood where they lived, unless someone in the neighborhood developed a relationship with the ex-con. In the cases where the offender assaulted a stranger, it was often done at a more distant location from the offender’s residence.
“It’s social proximity that was important — who do they hang out with, who do they socialize with,” Bliven said.
So all that’s really accomplished by prohibiting ISR housing in vast areas of a city is making it more difficult for any ISR housing to be established, according to the DOC. And offenders in ISR housing might be less of a threat to the community than those inmates who are released with fewer restrictions.
“They’re probably the least of our problems because we keep a close eye on them, law enforcement knows about them and keeps a closer eye on them as well,” Bliven said. “We have a very good record. ... The problem that local police have is people who aren’t under close supervision.”
Plus, if a city’s motivation is simply to push the offenders into someone else’s backyard, it may be deemed illegal, Solheid warned.
“The courts may very well rule against that sort of residency restriction,” he said.
Mankato officials say their proposed ordinance is not so restrictive that it would preclude any ISR housing. But they are displeased with the tactics and the lack of communication by the DOC in setting up the Record Street housing, and they’re worried that one house may become several over time.
Councilwoman Tamra Rovney said the DOC’s approach in the Record Street case likely stemmed in part from the difficulty in finding housing for offenders.
“Is it appropriate? Probably not,” Rovney said. "... There’s just not many places out there.”
“That’s not our problem,” Councilman Jack Considine responded. “That’s their problem.”
Considine, a longtime county jail administrator, and other council members said they aren’t opposed to Blue Earth County offenders returning to Mankato after their sentence, and they said they recognized that supervised ex-cons are more likely to be successful than homeless offenders left completely on their own. But they don’t want to be an offender-hub for southern Minnesota, and they don’t want even homegrown offenders concentrated in one neighborhood.
“You don’t really have the ability to eliminate it,” City Manager Pat Hentges said. “What you have is an ability to prevent a saturation of it.”
DOC officials said they would like to talk with city officials before they vote on the proposed ordinance later this summer.
“We are more than willing to come to meet with members of the City Council to discuss these issues,” Solheid said.
Hentges said that communication should have started much sooner, particularly since the DOC’s Mankato Place regional office is in the same building as the municipal offices. Instead, the DOC used a Frazee man to purchase the Record Street location with no hint, according to Hentges, that it was going to be used by the department to house high-risk offenders.
“They were aware of what all our concerns are and they went around the process in an attempt to get a location,” he said.
So will a meeting be scheduled so the DOC can make their case for a less restrictive ordinance on ISR housing in Mankato?
Hentges said DOC representatives can attend the public hearing, likely to be held on Aug. 11, and share their thoughts along with residents of the Record Street neighborhood and anyone else who cares to comment.
“I can guarantee you that this will be an open process,” he said.