Wisconsin's prisons are a mess, which Governor Walker has made worse. But we can fix this.

Emily Mills | Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Show Caption Hide Caption PolitiFact Wisconsin: Kelda Helen Roys on Scott Walker and prisons vs UW System Democratic candidate for governor Kelda Helen Roys accused Republican Gov. Scott Walker of putting prisons ahead of the University of Wisconsin System

In Wisconsin, we spend more taxpayer money to lock people up than we do to educate them at universities.

That should be a problem worth addressing for any politician.

But so far, only the Democratic candidates for governor are talking about it. Our current governor seems intent to balloon the inmate population, diverting millions of dollars into a system that does more to destroy lives than rehabilitate them.

How did we get to the point where our state’s prisons are more than 140% full? A big piece of the puzzle began in the 1990s when then-state representative Scott Walker took the lead in writing and passing Wisconsin’s harsh truth-in-sentencing law. Though it was softened by the Legislature in the following decade, Walker and the Republican majority Legislature in 2011 reinstituted it and made it even harsher. Truth-in-sentencing laws virtually eliminate parole, severely weakening early-release opportunities for qualified inmates.

That plus our immoral move to treat minor children as adults, over-penalizing low-level drug offenses, keeping marijuana illegal, and racist and classist policies (Wisconsin has the highest incarceration rate for African American men in the country), have helped lead to the prison overpopulation crisis.

The bill was passed without ever assessing the cost: Currently, $2.26 billion in general fund dollars are allocated to the Department of Corrections over two years. Meanwhile, just $2.14 billion is allocated for the University of Wisconsin System. Hundreds of millions of that come just from the extra costs associated with the truth-in-sentencing law.

As of March, there were 23,246 prisoners and 66,079 offenders on “extended supervision,” which is basically mandatory probation. The overcrowding and over-incarceration means we’re often relying on ill-equipped county jails to house people serving state sentences. That alone is costing us roughly $25,000 a day, or $9 million a year.

Without hope of early release (parole), though, we’ve not only added to the exploding and expensive prison population, we’ve taken away one of the few incentives for incarcerated people to become rehabilitated. The hope of early release can be one of the few things motivating someone to chart a more constructive course for themselves. Why work towards anything positive if there’s no hope of getting out of prison any time soon?

There are studies to back this idea up, that “the availability of criteria-based early-release programs lowers recidivism,” among other things.

Kelda Roys, one of the Democratic candidates for governor, laid out a plan to cut the prison population in half over four years, something that would save state taxpayers millions of dollars and help to improve the lives and safety of inmates and correctional officers alike. “She said she could achieve that reduction of nearly 12,000 inmates by granting more paroles; releasing ill and aging inmates; expanding diversion programs, drug courts and other alternatives to incarceration; legalizing marijuana; pardoning low-level drug offenders; and overhauling the truth-in-sentencing law,” according to a Journal Sentinel report.

Tony Evers and Mahlon Mitchell have both made several of these points in their campaigns as well. In fact, every major Democratic candidate has seriously addressed the issue.

Walker seems intent on throwing money away on outdated and disproven methods that will continue to ruin lives. It took him years to take action on the troubled Lincoln Hills youth prison, mostly thanks to massive political and legal pressure. Our overcrowded adult prison system can’t afford any more such foot-dragging, and shipping prisoners off to private facilities, or sinking millions more into building new jails, will only make the problems worse.

We need criminal justice reform in Wisconsin. I’m glad candidates for the state’s top office are addressing the issue. It’s high time we backed these kinds of positive, sweeping changes — not just for the sake of our wallets, but for the quality of life for all Wisconsinites.

Emily Mills is a freelance writer who lives in Madison. Twitter: @millbot; Email: emily.mills@outlook.com