ST. PAUL — Minnesota must make it easier for sex offenders to finish a treatment program that for most has resulted in indefinite state custody, and should try to get politics out of the screening process, a task force said Monday.

The 22-member panel recommended a major overhaul of the state’s sex offender laws, throwing the complex and contentious issue into the hands of state lawmakers ahead of the 2014 session.

The task force recommended taking decisions about civil commitment of sex offenders out of the hands of local judges, and giving them instead to a statewide panel of retired judges. The panel also proposes the creation of a state unit for screening individual offenders and the risk they present based on “the most current and accurate science.”

That unit should be “insulated from political influence,” the task force report says.

“We tried to make the process more rational,” said the task force’s chairman, former state Supreme Court Chief Justice Eric Magnuson. “Something that’s easier to understand, more objective and that leaves politics out of it to the greatest extent possible in terms of both commitment and release.”

The panel was convened by the state’s commissioner of human services and charged with recommending legislative changes in the face of a federal class action lawsuit that has raised concerns about the constitutionality of the Minnesota Sex Offender Program. Minnesota has more sex offenders in civil commitment per capita than any other state, and in the program’s 19 years only one person has ever been discharged from prisonlike treatment facilities in Moose Lake and St. Peter.

“There is broad consensus that the current system of civil commitment of sex offenders in Minnesota captures too many people and keeps many of them too long,” the report says.

Still, even backers of sweeping changes acknowledged the politically explosive potential of any move that it likely to result in dozens of sex offenders being released back into communities with less supervision.

Under current law, local prosecutors can pursue commitment for sex offenders without any independent evaluation of whether they pose a threat. The task force recommends that prosecutors still be able to pursue commitment, but says recommendations from the proposed screening unit should be admissible as evidence.

Further, instead of leaving commitment decisions to local judges, the task force recommends the creation of a statewide civil commitment court; the current state Supreme Court chief justice would choose retired judges to staff its ranks. The task force also recommends that defense attorneys be hired to represent people in civil commitment proceedings, at state expense.

The task force is recommending a “bifurcated” commitment process in which the court would first decide if a person belongs in the program; and if so, whether they should be confined in Moose Lake or St. Peter, or alternatively allowed to live in a less restrictive but still supervised setting. Anyone committed to the program would also automatically get a case review once every two years, under another task force recommendation.

“Not everybody in the program is the same,” said Rep. Tina Liebling, DFL-Rochester, who served on the task force. “We do need the highest security for some very dangerous people. But there are others who don’t fit that category, and we need the flexibility to put them someplace that might not be behind razor wire.”

Of the 698 people now enrolled in the program, 52 have never been convicted of an adult crime. “No person should be civilly committed based solely on behavior that occurred while that person was a juvenile,” the report said.

Magnuson warned that if the Legislature failures to fix the program it risk having it dismantled by a federal judge.

But the issue could get ensnared in election-year politics as November 2014 approaches. After facing criticism from a potential Republican opponent, Democratic Gov. Mark Dayton halted the provisional release of offenders until the Legislature has a chance to act. He also delayed a decision about where to place a new, less restrictive state treatment facility after a public outcry from residents in Cambridge, where it was to be located.

Some Democratic and Republican lawmakers have called for a political truce on the issue, even as some legislators have countered that the judicial threat to the program has been overblown.

Rep. Jim Abeler, an Anoka Republican who also served on the task force, said those who believe changes are necessary — he counted himself in that group — might have to push forward even if it’s divisive.

“If we can’t reach a truce, that doesn’t mean the problem then goes away,” Abeler said.