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DAN GUNDERSON: Shock and anger drive the debate about what to do with sex offenders. This year, the name on everyone's mind is Dru Sjodin. Alan Sjodin spoke to reporters soon after his daughter disappeared in November.

ALAN SJODIN: We're just in total shock because we want her released. We want her found. We want her home for Thanksgiving. We want her with all our friends and family. She's a fantastic young lady. We need her back.

DAN GUNDERSON: 15 years ago, the shock and anger were the same. The names were Carrie Coonrod and Mary Foley, young women raped and killed by sex offenders. Lawmakers and the public demanded action to stop violent sex offenders. One solution was civil commitment. It allows the state to confine the most dangerous offenders in a treatment facility, after they serve their prison sentence. But the state needed a better way to predict which offenders were dangerous.

Research showed psychiatrists were nearly always wrong in predicting what sex offenders would do in the future. So the Department of Corrections developed the Minnesota Sex Offender Screening Tool. It's an actuarial tool, the same kind of tool insurance companies use to decide who pays the highest insurance premiums. It's a complicated process, but here's the general idea.

Researchers identified 16 characteristics common to dangerous sex offenders. All sex offenders who go to prison in Minnesota are compared against those common characteristics. Then a complex scoring system assigns a number to the offender. That number puts the sex offender in a risk category, level 1, 2, or 3, indicating low, medium, or high risk. High-risk offenders are the ones considered for civil commitment.

But University of Minnesota psychology professor William Grove says the results are useless. He says the sex offender screening tool inflates the recidivism rate. Grove uses an example to explain. Say the screening tool classified five offenders as level 3, the most dangerous, Grove says, in fact, only one of those men would be likely to re-offend, not all five.

WILLIAM GROVE: And if this test is, as I believe it is not valid, you'd be putting four people into sex offender treatment, probably indefinitely, who wouldn't recidivate, for every one person that you put in there that would.

DAN GUNDERSON: William Grove studies the science of prediction. He spent months taking apart the Minnesota Sex Offender Screening Tool to see how it worked. He says the simple answer is it doesn't. Grove is not a lonely voice of dissent. A handful of researchers have come to the same conclusion. But there are also studies supporting the Minnesota screening tool. The dispute is about accuracy.

Here's how the process works. Sex offenders are assigned a score while in prison. The score is between minus 5 and 17. The higher the number, the more dangerous the offender. Those who score 8 or higher are called level 3 offenders. But a high score doesn't necessarily mean the person will commit another crime. Let's use a group of 10 convicted rapists to explain. All 10 scored 8 on the screening tool. They're level 3 offenders.

But remember, this is about statistical prediction. Six of the 10 would commit another crime, four would not. So the tool would be right about 60% of the time. Not a perfect prediction, but better than flipping a coin. And research shows it's better than a psychiatric evaluation. But U of M professor William Grove says the tool is actually much less accurate than the state believes. Grove says he's concerned lawmakers put too much faith in the prediction of future behavior.

WILLIAM GROVE: They can make the best decision if they have the most accurate data about, among other things, how accurate these predictions are. And it's my concern that they're being over-represented in various venues as to how accurate they are so that people have the idea that they are performing better than they very likely are.

DAN GUNDERSON: State officials say they have not oversold the ability of the Minnesota Sex Offender Screening Tool to predict risk. But Department of Corrections deputy commissioner Harley Nelson says lawmakers and the news media have attached too much importance to individual offender scores.

HARLEY NELSON: People were starting to get excited if the score was 11 versus a 12 or a 12 versus a 13. There's no tool that's going to give you that kind of specifics that a two-point is going to dramatically change it. So it's used more as a guide. That doesn't mean it's a bad tool. It's an instrument to help us do it. But it's not the holy grail. It's going to tell you exactly what somebody, how they're going to act when they're released or what's their absolute risk of re-offending.

DAN GUNDERSON: Nelson says the sex offender screening tool is not the only thing officials consider when they decide risk levels or request civil commitment. However, it is a key part of assigning risk and deciding which offenders are considered for civil commitment. Nelson says the tool is not perfect, but it's the best available tool for categorizing sex offenders. He says the state is looking for a better way to identify a dangerous offenders.

Some critics contend anything less than perfection is unacceptable. They say it's wrong to lock an offender away for life based on an inaccurate prediction of future behavior. Mark Hansell teaches criminal justice at Minnesota State University Moorhead. Hansell says the current system clearly keeps dangerous sex offenders off the street, but it also confines some who would not commit new crimes if released.

MARK HANSELL: This person has done awful things. They've spent a period of time in prison. Has this person lost all dignity? Is this person human garbage? And even though they do no harm in the future, worth simply throwing on the garbage heap and forgetting about, in order to achieve a real and measurable social benefit, but you have to treat this person as garbage and throw them away in order to accomplish that social benefit. Is that where we've gotten as a society? Is that where we've gotten as a civilization?

DAN GUNDERSON: Hansell says that question should be part of the debate about sex offenders. Other critics of the process are more pragmatic. They say the state can't afford to continue putting sex offenders in state hospitals. Civil commitment of sex offenders is expensive. The bill is nearly $23 million this year. In five years, the cost could triple as more sex offenders are committed.

Most experts will agree a very few dangerous sex offenders must be kept off the street, even after they are released from prison. But they point out, sex offenders in general are not at a high risk to re-offend. Corrections officials say about 1 in 10 high-risk sex offenders will commit a new crime when released. The problem for state officials is there's no surefire way to know who will re-offend. So they identify a range of people considered most likely to be a risk to public safety.

It's a delicate balance. They don't want to lock up people unnecessarily, but they also don't want to release someone who will make headlines. And that's where politics can become entangled with science. Department of Corrections deputy commissioner Harley Nelson is concerned about political pressure on the people deciding which sex offenders are dangerous.

HARLEY NELSON: Yeah, that can have a chilling effect on people having to make decisions. And not just in that area, but, from judges to probation officers, there's many different people that are working the front lines with these people and have to make those decisions. And you don't want to have them so intimidated that it hampers their judgment.

DAN GUNDERSON: Some experts say political passion can lead to expensive mistakes. John LaFond holds the chair in Law, the Constitution, and Society at the University of Missouri Law School. LaFond spent years researching effective treatment for sex offenders. He's also challenged civil commitment laws in court.

Lafond says commitment is not the best alternative. After an offender gets out of prison, a combination of probation and treatment is successful with most. And the cost is much lower, a fraction of the cost of long-term confinement. LaFond says a lock em up and throw away the key solution is good politics, but bad public policy.

JOHN LAFOND: These are difficult and complex public policy issues and cannot be solved with sound bites or simplistic solutions. Simply put, public policy needs to be based on what we know about sex offenders and sex offending, and not by tomorrow's headline.

DAN GUNDERSON: But public policy is often driven by fear and anger. Minnesota officials say they expect a significant increase in the number of sex offenders committed to state treatment facilities as a result of the Dru Sjodin case. Governor Pawlenty ordered all level 3 offenders be considered for civil commitment. Dan Gunderson, Minnesota Public Radio, Moorhead.