A new policy that took personal computers away from people being treated in the Minnesota Sex Offender Program in St. Peter and Moose Lake is being challenged in Nicollet County District Court.

Four inmates are claiming the decision by the Minnesota Department of Health and Human Services to remove their computers, which they’ve been allowed to keep in their rooms since the program was created in 1995, is a violation of the state’s Patients’ Bill of Rights.

Staff running the facilities says the computers need to go for several reasons. Due to rapid advances in computer technology and the growing number of people placed in the program, it has become too difficult to search the computers for materials the inmates aren’t allowed to have.

And, in the past, pornography, names of children, documents used for forgeries, maps of the St. Peter Regional Treatment Center grounds and other restricted items have been found on inmates’ computers, said Nancy Johnston, St. Peter sex offender program deputy administrator, in an affidavit filed with the lawsuit. In one case, a weapon was found hidden in a computer casing.