Our View — State failed on offender securityeditorial board -The escape last week of four dangerous sex offenders from the St. Peter Security Hospital should astound, shock and frighten residents of St. Peter, the Mankato area and the rest of the state.
Sex offender Michael Dale Benson remains at large. He is considered one of the state’s most dangerous and most likely to re-offend. He was able to saw through a concrete-encased steal bar on the window of his room, use the bar to break the window, and climb down the side of the Security Hospital on bedsheets. Three others followed him. This escape would be comical if it weren’t true. This breach comes at a time when Minnesota lawmakers have increased spending on the sex offender program by millions of dollars per year. The state is spending about $13.5 million more this year than last year. Gov. Pawlenty proposed in March spending an additional $53 million this year, representing a 12 percent increase.
Lawmakers and the governor say this money will protect the public by keeping sex offenders locked up. More money didn’t appear to help last year. When two sex offenders escaped from St. Peter in March of 2005 in a manner similar to the recent escape, the state came in with security upgrades. Sex offenders Alexander Martinelli and Rodger Robb rappelled from a second story window using bedsheets and slipped through recently repaired fencing. In April 2005, Department of Human Services Commissioner Kevin Goodno told The Free Press: “We have taken precautions both from a physical perspective — in ensuring that the same type of escape can’t happen again — as well as changing the routines of staff to also provide additional safety measures.” The recent escape shows those efforts have failed. The escape last week could have been prevented with razor wire, but also if employees of the facility had checked on Benson, according to “protocol,” according to Assistant Commissioner of Human Services Wes Kooistra. Several employees are to make random checks on all inmates. They’re supposed to check the room and the windows. That wasn’t done. But the unwillingness or inability of security employees to “follow protocol” is only the symptom of a much larger problem. The crackdown on sex offenders created a system that nearly doubled the number of criminals designated as sex offenders and put them into a system that made them more desperate. An earlier Free Press in-depth report showed that of those going through sex offender treatment, no one had successfully completed the program in the several years it had been operated. While the new laws created more sex offenders and made them more desperate, the state was unable to control them at the rate they were coming into the system. In one case, sex offenders were transferred from Moose Lake to a building in St. Peter that was still being remodeled for tighter security. Inmate Rick McDeid told The Free Press in April 2005 that officials were still “slapping a piece of Plexiglas over a window and shooting in some screws to hold it in place” shortly after he arrived there. While the St. Peter campus hired some 260 new employees in the last year, the number of mentally ill and dangerous people as well as sex offenders nearly doubled in the last three years, according to Kooistra. That created problems. It’s difficult to train that many new employees in a short period of time, Kooistra said. It’s tough to schedule guard duty so there was a good mix of new employees working with more experienced employees. Lawmakers shoulder some blame as well. They took an approach that was high on toughness but low on simple logistical planning. Gov. Tim Pawlenty delayed the planned security upgrades to St. Peter and Moose Lake during a time of tight budgets. A planned $5 million upgrade one year was turned into a plan that called for spending half of that in the first year and the rest in 2008. The governor’s budget acknowledged a security audit done on the sex offender programs suggested upgrades. Still, the governor’s budget message stated the changes will be completed as “time and funding allows.” While the state and the governor are now finding time is of the essence in sex offender security, they have in the meantime created a system that’s more costly and less safe. Copyright © 1999-2006 cnhi, inc. |
![Text Box: Last update: April 20, 2006 – 10:30 PM
$10,000 reward offered for escaped sex offender

Paul Levy and Conrad Defiebre, Star Tribune
Authorities searching for convicted rapist Michael Dale Benson, who squeezed through a broken window and escaped from the Minnesota Security Hospital at St. Peter last weekend, say that his breakout may have been well planned and that he may have crossed state lines with accomplices providing money, hiding places and vehicles.
But the St. Peter police, suspecting that Benson's escape may have been hastily planned and that he remains in Minnesota, offered a $10,000 reward Thursday for information leading to his capture.
"A $10,000 award can be very persuasive if somebody in Minnesota knows of somebody harboring a fugitive," said Tim O'Malley, assistant superintendent of the state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension.
Meanwhile, Gov. Tim Pawlenty called Thursday for toughened security at the hospital, including razor-wire fencing around all areas used by sex offenders. State officials in charge of the hospital said they are rushing to install such upgrades.
"We already have razor wire in parts of the campus," said Wes Kooistra, assistant commissioner of human services. "We want to create redundancies so that all areas that house sex offenders are secure."
Benson got out of a building that wasn't ringed with razor wire because its windows, reinforced with steel bars and security glass, were thought to be impenetrable, Kooistra said.
Authorities think that Benson fled in a stolen green 1997 Ford Crown Victoria that was believed to have been spotted Monday in Cass County, in north-central Minnesota, authorities said.
A federal warrant issued this week for Benson, 42, allows the FBI to act on behalf of the BCA in cases where the FBI has jurisdiction.
"If this [escape] was well planned, we wanted to be prepared if he crosses state lines," O'Malley said.
Benson pleaded guilty in 1989 to first-degree criminal sexual conduct for breaking into a home in Douglas County, sexually assaulting a woman and threatening to kill her. He was civilly committed in 1983.
He and three other men broke through a window of safety glass Saturday night and then, possibly after greasing themselves, slithered through an 8- by 20-inch opening. The jagged glass opening was stained with blood.
The three other men were arrested within hours.
Since the escape, Kooistra said, "we're reviewing security from start to finish." In addition to fencing, new window designs, electronic monitoring and stepped-up staff security protocols are being studied for St. Peter, long a hospital for the mentally ill and dangerous but now home to 180 civilly committed sex offenders as well.
"They were designed as hospitals, but they have to be secure," Pawlenty said of the St. Peter facilities.
Officials hope to have costs of needed upgrades, as yet undetermined, financed in the public works bonding bill now pending before the Legislature. That bill already includes more than $40 million to build new quarters for 400 committed sex offenders at Moose Lake.
That facility, which is ringed with razor wire, now houses 150 sex offenders. The expansion project, slated to open in 2008, is patterned after buildings under construction at the Faribault prison, Kooistra said.
plevy@startribune.com • 612-673-4419 and cdefiebre@startribune.com • 651-222-1673](image1079.gif)
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PawletyUnlugged |
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Facts about Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty |
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YO-YO ON SEX OFFENDERS
STATEMENT: As a candidate for governor, Tim Pawlenty said that, “We won’t have a catch-and-release program for violent criminals….”1 And, as Majority Leader, Pawlenty criticized Governor Ventura for not spending money on criminal justice initiatives, saying, “If you have children being abducted and murdered because repeat offenders are falling through cracks in our criminal justice system, I’d say that’s a pretty good emergency. You ask regular people what bugs them most…and this is right up there.”2
YO-YO: In January, 2003, Governor-elect Pawlenty said that with the state facing a budget deficit, the corrections budget would be on the table for cuts, like every other area.3 True to his word, in his 2004-05 biennial budget recommendation, the Governor proposed “significant budget reductions” in such core services as sex offender evaluation and sex offender notification.4
In May, 2003, Dr. Anita Schlank, head of the Minnesota Sex Offender Program, resigned after being told that the program was growing at an “unsustainable rate” and being directed to draw up a list of 40 civilly committed sex offenders to place in community housing in order to save money.5 Governor Pawlenty’s Human Services Commissioner initially called Schlank’s claim outrageous, but later recanted after another employee corroborated Schlank.6
In December, 2003, the Pawlenty Administration was severely criticized for releasing Alfonso Rodriguez from prison, rather than referring him for civil commitment as a sexual psychopath, where he would have been confined in a secure mental hospital. Rodriguez, a convicted sex offender, allegedly kidnapped and murdered Dru Sjodin. It was recently noted that referrals to the sex offender program have surged since Dru Sjodin’s murder.7 This is because the Pawlenty Administration had been allowing dangerous sex offenders like Rodriguez to leave prison without being properly referred for civil commitment prior to the Sjodin murder. Indeed, even today, the Pawlenty Administration ignores its statutory mandate to issue recommendations to county attorneys as to whether a particular sex offender should be civilly committed.
1. Saint Paul Pioneer Press, “Lieutenant Governor Joanne Benson gets boost in Republican straw poll,” September 21, 1997. 2. Star Tribune, “GOP crime plan tackles repeat offenses, information issues,” January 11, 2000. 3. Minnesota Public Radio, ”Pawlenty names Chief of Staff, Corrections Commissioner,” January 2, 2003. 4. William Mitchell Law Review, Volume 29:4, page 1104; Governor’s Recommendation, 2004‑05 biennial budget, 2/18/2003, Minnesota Department of Corrections. 5. Star Tribune, State sought sex offender release list, Senators told,” July 15, 2003. 6. Saint Paul Pioneer Press, “Commissioner reassesses request for sex offender list,” July 26, 2003. 7. Star Tribune, “Pawlenty’s prisons: Must safety be costly?,” February 2, 2006. |
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FLIP-FLOP ON EXECUTIVE ORDER |
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FLIP FLOP ON ALPHONSO RODRIGUEZ
FLIP: Gov. Pawlenty initially attributed the failure to civilly commit convicted sex offender Alphonso Rodriguez to "bad judgment" by his Administration. (Star Tribune, "Gov. cites bad judgment on Rodriguez," 12/19/03).
FLOP: Just hours later, Pawlenty "clarified" his remarks, saying, "It would be premature to say that disciplinary action is even an option at this time." |
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WANTED Michael Dale Benson remains at large after escaping April 15, 2006, from the Minnesota Sex Offender Treatment program in St. Peter. Public Safety officials say 42-year-old Benson has a history of serious sex offenses and should be considered dangerous. AP/State Dept. of Public Safety |