This week, the Minnesota Senate passed the Judiciary and Public Safety budget, providing the constitutionally required and critical funding to keep Minnesotans safe. This budget focuses on safety, providing justice to victims of crimes, and providing law enforcement, judiciary, and correctional officers the support they need to do their job. Senator Mary Kiffmeyer (R-Big Lake) served on the Judiciary Committee and voted in favor of the budget, which contains the Healthy Start Act, which she introduced.
“A robust Judiciary and Public Safety Budget is absolutely crucial to Minnesota life,” Kiffmeyer said Tuesday. “It’s so much more than funding the police. It funds important programs to keep Minnesotans safe, improvements to internal policies, ensures criminals are properly charged, and so much more. It’s easy to overlook how desperately our state needs these things when they don’t impact you on a daily basis. Without this budget, we would notice. We would feel the impact immediately. I am pleased to see this pass and look forward to Governor Walz signing the bill and avoiding a shutdown.”
Included in the Judiciary budget is the Healthy Start Act. This program allows eligible female inmates to go to a community-based program before, during, and after giving birth to their child. The program is not a mandate and would be permissive on a case-by-case basis for non-violent offenders. By placing female inmates in a community-based program, the policy is helping to foster a stronger mother/child relationship and positioning them to make better choices for their child in the future.
Notably, this budget prioritizes the needs of victims to get the justice they deserve by increasing penalties for heinous crimes, provides investigative resources for crimes in the National Guard, and amending statutes that prioritize the criminal over the victim. Crimes against children are particularly heinous and this bill increases penalties for criminals who traffic children and those who create or distribute child pornography, and also creates a new crime with severe penalties for child torture. As seen in a Supreme Court case earlier this year, Minnesota statute is amended through this bill to close the “voluntary intoxication loophole,” giving sexual assault survivors the full support of the criminal justice system regardless of sobriety.
The Public Safety budget provides significant support for first responders through pay raises for law enforcement officers and investments in programs to help Minnesotans in the field. The Hometown Heroes program provides resources for firefighters including counseling, training, and monetary support for critical illnesses brought on in the line of duty. To keep Minnesotans safe, there are expansions included for the Violent Crime Enforcement Teams, which investigate serious crimes such as gangs and drug trafficking. A provision brought forward as a response to Officer Arik Matson’s on-duty injury. The Matson Strong provision provides stiffer penalties for individuals who attempt to kill a police officer.
On the front end of the public safety system, this budget prioritizes improvements to the overlap between the public and law enforcement officials. This includes the addition of “Travis’s Law,” which requires 911 operators to include social service crisis teams when mental health calls come in, and “Matthew’s Law,” which increases safety protections for confidential informants. No-knock warrants, officer conduct database improvements, and the expansions of body-worn cameras are addressed in this budget, emphasizing the safety of the public through meaningful reforms.
Changes to the judicial system are critical to keeping communities safe, decreasing repeat offenses upon release, and ensuring fair trials with penalties that match the crime. This budget includes a provision to require ignition interlock for repeat DUI drivers to keep the roads safer for other Minnesotans as well as put a barrier between another offence. The Department of Corrections will now be required to provide upon release identification cards, information on how to access services, and help to prevent homelessness.
The purpose of the Judiciary and Public Safety Budget is to fund our critical public safety sectors, keeping Minnesotans safe, and ensuring proper penalties for criminals. Some efforts to defund, demoralize, and damage our law enforcement community were excluded, such as prohibitions on traffic stops, sign and release warrants, and earlier release of body camera footage regardless of the investigation stage. The “Minnesota Rehabilitation and Reinvestment Act” was also left out, which would lower prison time for most offenders. This budget keeps Minnesotans safe and ensures justice for victims of violent crime.