Members of the Minnesota Association of Professional Employees (M.A.P.E.) held an informational picket this morning at the DECC. M.A.P.E. is bringing attention to the critically low staffing, retention and safety concerns at the Minnesota Sex Offender Program (MSOP) facility in Moose Lake.

Pete Braith, the Local 1701 president of M.A.P.E., says they are talking with the administration of Moose Lake’s MSOP facility.

“In order for us to do the programming that is necessary for some of our clients that we just need to have safe staffing levels. Even today at the facility, we’re down to emergency levels of staffing,” Braith said. “So one security counselor on a unit full of 95 clients. It’s hard to do those things when you have that sort of staffing. When you have a management that’s sometimes not willing to have those conversations about what needs to be done properly.”

Braith says M.A.P.E. will continue to have ongoing meetings weekly to coordinate with the administration at the Minnesota Sex Offender Program facility in Moose Lake to improve working conditions.

“The work we do is important, the work we do is necessary. We try to provide quality programming. In order to have quality programming, you have to have a fully staffed group of people,” Braith said. “The people that are there now, they’re good people. We all care about our jobs. We’re very passionate about our jobs and in order to do our jobs even better, we need the bodies and the facility.”

For more information about the Minnesota Association of Professional Employees Local 1701 you can read more here. Also for more stories happening down at the DECC you can read more here.