Inmate-release edict challenging.

Byline: Kevin Featherly

Curtis Shanklin is so new at his job as the Department of Corrections' community services deputy commissioner that when he sat down for an Oct. 13 interview, he was still trying to figure out where all the stuff in his office is located.

"I haven't even tried to figure out where to get business cards yet," he chuckled.

But Shanklin knows where the phone is. And he has been using it, mostly to set up future in-person meetings with leaders in Community Corrections Act counties, which the state pays to provide offender supervision on DOC's behalf.

As the Corrections official responsible for overseeing implementation of the state Supreme Court's recent Ford v. Schnell edict, Shanklin will be using that phone a lot. He'll also be racking up big mileage.

"I think that goes without saying," said Shanklin, who left his job as co-coordinator of the Minnesota Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative (JDAI) to join Corrections following a heavily vetted search. "It's going to have to be a part of the job."

In its unanimous Sept. 11 ruling, the Supreme Court effectively ordered DOC to release any inmates left in custody beyond their scheduled supervised release date.

The decision was made along narrow lines: DOC violated case law and its own policies in keeping Forda Level III sex offenderin custody for two years after his scheduled supervised release. The ruling avoided constitutional questions.

However, a similar case still before the court, Young v. Schnell, could definitively decide the practice's constitutionality.

In Ford, the court said that if the department can't find a county to accept an inmate willingly, DOC should snatch away its funding and provide supervision services itself. Alternatively, the court said, DOC could alter the terms of an inmates' release to facilitate housing placement.

Those remain open "options of last resort," said both Shanklin and his boss, Corrections Commissioner Paul Schnell. They will be communicated to stakeholders. But neither man thinks the triggers will have to be pulled.

"I do believe that we'll get there," Schnell said. "But it's going to be difficult conversations."

Numbers plummet

Just a few years ago, DOC had more than 100 inmates in custody beyond their scheduled release. But the number appears to have plummeted after Deputy Commissioner Ron Solheid sent out an April 28, 2017, internal memo ordering low-risk offenders, scheduled for standard community supervision, to be...

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