Letter to the Editor: A voice from inside

I am one of the incarcerated individuals mentioned in the article on Sept. 29. My offense took place when I was a 19-year old sophomore in college and involved no sex, no rape and no minors. I have been incarcerated for more than 16 years now and after successfully completing treatment at NCF, I fully expected (and was led to believe) I would finally be released. Instead, my family and I were all shocked and blindsided with the prospect of being reviewed for civil commitment.

Iowa is one of only 20 states that has civil commitment and uses this as a way to incarcerate someone indefinitely. In the history of civil commitment in Iowa, only 27 individuals have ever been released.

A committee of unelected members appointed by the Dept. of Corrections known as the MDT simply has to “feel” a person might commit a crime in the future to justify a review for civil commitment. (It is not democratic to incarcerate people on the hunch they might commit a crime in the future when a crime has not actually been committed). This is what the MDT is doing to people at Newton Correctional Facility in Newton.

The Attorney General’s office then delays this review process until a person is within 90 days of completing their entire prison sentence, extending an individual’s incarceration by many years; seven additional years in my own case. The MDT deciding to send cases for further review imposes a “silent mandatory minimum,” and denies the person any re-entry opportunity through parole or work release. The ends do not justify the means. The Dept of Corrections’ MDT is also violating Iowa law in order to extend individuals’ prison time.

This needs to stop. Every incarcerated individual who this is being done to deserves to be reviewed by a fair legal process. Why is this happening? Unfortunately, once a person is labeled a “sex offender,” the public ceases to consider that person as human and deserving of fair treatment. This made-up label is applied to people guilty of urinating in public, streaking, a high school senior sleeping with a freshman girlfriend and teenagers even get it for sexting. The majority of cases are not the “heinous” offenses we are led to believe. As a society, we need to move away from the harmful, misleading label “sexually violent predator.” Indecent exposure is considered a “sexually violent offense” when it is neither sexual nor violent.

Statistics from the Dept. of Justice show that individuals convicted of a sex offense have the lowest recidivism rate of any crime other than murder.

The City of Newton should be known for something better than what is happening at Newton Correctional, and the people of Newton deserve to know what is happening in their backyard. Incarcerated individuals and their families are all thankful Chris Braunschweig is helping to shed light on this issue.

Eric Strenge

Newton Correctional Facility