Minnesota Sex Offender Program - Moose Lake - Federal

In all ways but name Minnesota Sex Offender Program (MSOP) is a prison where we’re all serving indeterminate (de facto life) sentences as preventative detention for future crimes we will never commit. After we completed our DOC prison sentences, they transferred us to this “secure treatment facility” run by DHS instead of DOC. About the only difference from DOC is that, despite calling us “clients,” we are actually patients and thus have some additional legal protections under the Minnesota Patient Bill of Rights (§ 144.651). The biggest is our right to organize and run a “Resident Advisory Family Council” (RAFC) that allows our elected patient council to participate in weekly video meetings with outside support. Our outside support has grown from family members to also include attorneys, therapists, ministers and even a retired legislator. Once a month we meet for an hour with the facility director, clinical director and Ombudsman to present our proposals for policy changes.

Some policy changes we’ve helped bring about include the ability for patients to call toll-free numbers, allowing patients to seek post-secondary educational opportunities, promoting voter registration and the in-person voting process recently signed into law.

The RAFC also worked directly with the Mitchell-Hanline School of Law and provided input on their 1 April 2024 open letter to Governor Tim Walz that was signed by 100 notable individuals and organizations. This scathing report calls for MSOP to be sunset and the $110 million dollar yearly operating expense be reinvested in proven victim advocacy programs.

This year our RAFC also sponsored a very successful “freedom” themed 4th of July Writing Contest that resulted in 45 patients submitting 111 poems, stories and essays.

Realizing that incorrect data in our records was being used against us when applying for transfers to less restrictive alternatives, the RAFC wrote an educational how-to brochure entitled “How To Do a Data Challenge” that we distributed to fellow patients. MSOP retaliated by giving me a disciplinary violation notice for handing this brochure to another patient before group instead of mailing it to him.

But the brochures worked and the Executive Director was overwhelmed with data challenges and started extending the deadline to respond. I finally filed a request for an advisory opinion from the commissioner of administration on this issue, and a 15 July 2024 advisory opinion #24-001 was issued (https://mn.gov/admin/data-practices). This four page report cites the executive director’s violation of the 30-day statutory deadline in responding to data challenges and noted that she didn’t have the authority to change the law.

On 10 September 2024 my first data challenge appeal went to a formal contested case hearing in front of an administrative law judge. During the four hour hearing, a fellow patient and two therapists were called as witnesses and MSOP was represented by the Attorney General’s office. Thankfully my 87-year-old father is still a licensed attorney, so he stepped in and hit a home run. We won the data challenge appeal and on 3 January 2025 my (now former) therapist received the judge’s court order to add a single sentence to my quarterly report. That’s coincidentally the same day the facility decided I should be moved to another treatment team on another living unit… exactly what I had been requesting for the last year!

So it’s a great start to a new year, with lots more victories in store. Remember, the secret is don’t ever, ever give up!