Senator Linda Higgins - State Laws Regarding Sex Offender Placement

At the August 30th 'Dessert with Don" community forum the featured topic was sex offenders in North Minneapolis.  In this video our state Senator Linda Higgins speaks a bit about the state law that references the mitigation of concentration of sex offenders in one area. 

As most Johnny Northside readers already know, the state law is too vague and not defined or clear enough to help the northside communities that have become a dumping ground for the bottom of the barrel sex offenders that can't find housing anywhere else.

There is a movement in North Minneapolis to lobby the state legislators and department heads from various angles to get some action taken to rewrite the books to help impacted communities and distribute the burden of housing sex offenders.

Additionally, not on video, Senator Higgins was asked about the State of Minnesota's law regarding publishing, or rather NOT publishing the exact address of sex offenders residence.  Her answer was that years ago the legislators decided that since there was some previous instances of angered mobs attacking sex offenders, or possibly attacking the wrong person due to misinformation, the state decided to NOT publish the exact addresses but only name the block on which they live.

She said she does not see this law changing in Minnesota, despite over half of the 50 states in the country choosing to give the exact address.  Higgins said that it's likely that everyone on the block in which a sex offender lives, knows exactly what house is occupied by the sex offender.  Perhaps the state legislator should consider that choosing to NOT publish the exact address is exactly what leads to misinformation and cases of mistaken identity.

How Sex Offenders End Up In Your Community - Hennepin County Corrections

Hennepin County Corrections Supervisor Russ Stricker speaks about how sex offenders are ending up in North Minneapolis. Most of his talk is some of the snoozy, red tape bureaucratic details that basically boil down to a summary of "a sex offender ends up in your community because he asked to live there, because he found a landlord willing to rent to him".

Around minute 3:15 Russ begins to speak about how sex offenders submit for approval where it is they want to live. Then, the intense supervised release agent (ISR agent) checks out the residence for approval. It sounds to me like it's up to the sex offender to find residence on his own and it also sounds like there is very little grounds for denying and very little occurrence that residences are denied by the corrections department. Furthermore, it sounds like when a denial is made, mostly for the lack of a support system in the area the offender is requesting to live, the corrections department is not always confident that the denial will stick instead of being reversed by some appeal process.

Russ Stricker speaks about landlords who are willing to rent to sex offenders. To me this seems to be the key factor in determining where sex offenders will ultimately reside. I think that speaks volumes about the broken "sex offender placement" function (if there is such a thing) of the corrections system when we have absentee landlords who are a bigger factor in shaping this crucial component than the highly educated and regulated systems of the state and county corrections departments.

(And now for my editorial rant)
I don't think anyone can argue that the concentration of sex offenders in a small area of Minneapolis contributes to the dysfunction of that community, which in turn contributes to undesirable livability factors that keep decent families away which in turn contributes to (or enables) more dysfunction like violent crime, drugs, gangs, prostitution, blight, low property values, low civic engagement, poor schools, stressed and overworked public services like emergency responders which in turn contributes more to the unattractive livability conditions which in turn make it easier for absentee landlords to buy cheap, run down houses and rent to criminals and sex offenders.

It's all a vicious cycle that needs to be chipped away from all angles.

Why are we, voters and legislators and community leaders, letting slumlords dictate where sex offenders will live? Why are we letting them contribute to the burdens that our community carries on behalf of the rest of the county or metro area. What if sex offenders were returned to the zip code in which they committed their crime? Perhaps not the exact sex offender for sake of distance from victims, but what if Zip Code A traded their sex offender with Zip Code B, that way both zip codes keep the same number of sex offenders they were "assigned by destiny"?
(end rant, for now)

Russ was part of the panel of people asked to speak about the topic of sex offenders in north Minneapolis at the August 30 Dessert with Don community forum, sponsored by 5th Ward Councilman Don Samuels each month on the last Monday at 6pm, held at the UROC on Plymouth Ave, right next to the 4th precinct police station. Call the 5th Ward office at 612-673-2205 if you'd like more info about future forums or to recommend a topic for Dessert with Don.

(Do Not Click "Read More")

Sex Offenders Concentrated in North Minneapolis - And Residents Are UPSET!

For the past few months, the concentration of sex offenders in North Minneapolis has been a spotlighted hot button issue throughout the community, especially here on Johnny Northside Dot Com.

Recently, Councilman Don Samuels used his monthly community forum, Dessert with Don, to bring the discussion of sex offenders and their residential concentration to the forefront.  In my opinion no breakthroughs and solutions were achieved at this community forum, however just taking the steps to talk about and examine the problem is a good first step.  It's not enough though, and constituents of North Minneapolis must continue to push the agenda of sex offender concentration reform to the front of the line with our elected  and public officials, especially the state legislators, since it seems that is where reform must happen first.

Here is one North Minneapolis neighbor and community activist who did a little number crunching on his own.  It's residents like this that will pound the table and create the change we need to see in regards to this topic.  Let this video be a little motivation to everyone out there in NoMi-land to take up the cause, contact your state and local leaders and demand that laws be written and strengthened to protect the most vulnerable communities from bearing the unhealthy burden of housing the most dangerous and most undesirable in such lopsided ways.

Dessert with Don is held each month, on the last Monday of the month, at 6:00pm at UROC on Plymouth Ave. The 5th Ward office can be reached at 612-673-2205 if you'd like to recommend a certain issue to be highlighted at Dessert with Don.

(Do not click "read more")

The Surprising History Of "Dessert With Don" (Joke Font)

Stock photo and blog post by John Hoff

So far, there have only been two "Dessert With Don" events in North Minneapolis, which are forums sponsored by City Council Member Don Samuels. The last forum was about mass transit.

So, like I said...two. Only two.

But is that really true? A joke making the rounds says the first "Dessert With Don" forum was actually...

...held at the Butter Roll Bakery, and involved Don Samuels, slumlord Morris Klock, and a close encounter with a pastry display case. (For the record, the allegations by slumlord Morris Klock have apparently been denied by Don Samuels and the city attorneys forced to deal with Morris Klock's nonsense)

All the same, slumlords in North Minneapolis would be well-advised to clean up their act as quickly as possible, or they might also be invited to a "come to Jesus" talk and "Dessert With Don."