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 Matthew Feeney
1111 Highway 73
Moose Lake, MN 55767
760 Words

End the Atrocity: When the Punishment Becomes the Crime

by

Matthew Feeney

One of the foundations of a civilized society is that people who breakthe law need to be

held accountable and pay for their crime... and once that person has successfully served their

prison sentence, they have earned the right to return home. But what if there was a slick scam

thatlegallycircumventedtheexistingjusticesystem? Thereis. lt'scalled"civil commitment"

and it's still legal in over 20 states, including Minnesota.

After a man has completed his entire prison sentence (usuallythe maximum allowed by

law)for a crime of a sexual nature, instead of being released, this inmate is singled out by some

junk-science statistical algorithmic formula and subjected to a second trial to determine if he

should be released. The state claims this avoids the double jeopardy rule because this second

trial is held in a civil court. This civil court hears the same evidence as the original criminaltrial

but now the state can present additional hearsay and allegations along with state-owned

experts who opine that they can predict the future. These "expert" fortune tellers are paid to

testify under oath that this individual may commit another crime sometime in the future (a la

Minority Report).

Once committed, these individuals are now detained for "indeterminate" (de facto

"life") sentences that far exceed the state's statutory maximum prison sentences for their

original offense. The state gets around this by renamingthem "clients" and detainingthem in a
 Matthew Feeney
1111 Highway 73
Moose Lake, MN 55767
760 Words

prison-like "secured facility" complete with razor-wire, uniformed guards, room searches, wet-

cells, monitored phone calls and opened mail, etc.

ln Minnesota alone there are now over 750 men in the MSOP civil commitment

program, which is costingthe taxpayer's 5400 a day... per person. That's S146,000.00 every

yearforoneclient,fortherestoftheirnatural life. Manywerejuvenileonlyoffendersand

many are now disabled senior citizens. lronically, MSOP charges the same 5400 a day even if

the "client" refuses treatment and never comes out of their cell.

Required to provide some semblance of treatment in order to remain constitutional,

programs like MSOP struggle to invent new class material, including "Cinema Therapy" (which

has clients watch Tom & Jerry cartoons); calling prison yard & recreational time "therapeutic

hours;" and considering clients scrubbing toilets to be "vocational training."

There is a pending Federal class action case entitled Korsjens, et ol. v. Horpstead, et ol.

(Federal District Court File No.0:L1-cv-03659) where the presidingJudge Donovan Frank called

Minnesota's civil commitmenl"Droconic" and "unconstittJtionol." Unfortunately he was

overruled bythe Bth Circuit Court of Appeals. To date, only l man has ever been fully

discharged from MSOP.

Even other countries have explicitly condemned Minnesota's MSOP for violating basic

human rights. ln Sullivon v The Government of the United Stotes of America (Case No:

CO/1672/201L), England's High Court of Justice blocked the United States'extradition request

for Mr. Sullivan, specifically citing Minnesota's civil commitment law as"a flagront deniol of his

rights enshrined under Article i.1-" of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).
 Matthew Feeney
1111 Highway 73
Moose Lake, MN 55761
760 Words

Closer to home, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) vigorously opposes civil

commitment of sex offenders after prison. PaulApplebaum, M.D., the Chairman of the APA's

task force on Sexually Dangerous Offenders concluded "We were concerned thot psychiatry wos

being used to preventively detain a closs of people for whom confinement rather than treotment

was the reol gool. This struck many people os a misuse of psychiatry."

Just as minorities are over-represented in prison populations, the disproportionate

percentages of minorities who are civil committed is even more profound, including over 50%

of MSOP clients being LGBTQ.

People who commit sex offenses are most often referred to bythe media as "child

molesters, pedophiles and serial rapists" and they are the most vilified and hated group of

people in the world. These vicious tropes only serve to fan the fires of hatred towards

"otherness." lt'stime to turn the tables on shame and silence and to stand up for basic human

rights for our citizens struggling with mental health issues.

We need to end the atrocity. The most accurate indicaton of a civilized society isn't how

we honor our heroes, but how we treat our poorest prisoners. Civil commitment detention

centers like MSOP are an archaic symbol of our society's darker days whose time has ended. Be

on the right side of history. The 750+ men indeterminately detained by Minnesota's

unconstitutionalcivil commitment program at MSOP are clearlytellingthe world "l can't

breothe."

Are you going to stop and help or are you going to just walk on by?
 Matthew Feeney
1111 Highway 73
Moose Lake, MN 55767
760 Words

www.aiustfuture.org or www.voicesofOCEAN.net. For specific information about Minnesota's

civil commitment program, visit endMSOP at Facebook, or email endMSOP@gmail.com.