Pubdate: Sat, 11 Feb 2006
Source: Capital Times, The  (WI)
Copyright: 2006 The Capital Times
Contact:  http://www.madison.com/tct/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/73
Author: Joel McNally
Note: Joel McNally of Milwaukee writes a weekly column for The Capital Times.
Cited: the Justice Strategies report 
http://www.justicestrategies.net/Wisconsin_Report_Treatment_Instead_of_Prisons_Jan_06.pdf
Cited: The Sentencing Project reports 
http://www.sentencingproject.org/pubs_08.cfm
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/states/wi/ (Wisconsin)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/prison.htm (Incarceration)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/rehab.htm (Treatment)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?244 (Sentencing - United States)

CONSERVATIVES, SPEAK UP ON NONVIOLENT OFFENDERS

Republican leadership in the Legislature gives conservatism a bad 
name by trying to flood our city streets with handguns or block stem 
cell research that could save millions of lives.

But while the GOP's leaders are trying to dangerously liberalize gun 
laws and opposing pro-life medical research, some Republican 
politicians truly believe in sound conservative principles of fiscal 
responsibility and promotion of family values.

Two Republicans state Sen. Carol Roessler of Oshkosh and state Rep. 
Garey Bies of Sister Bay requested a study to document the savings, 
both in money and lives, that would result from moving Wisconsin 
toward drug treatment instead of prison for nonviolent drug offenses.

Among the startling findings in the study by Judith Greene and Kevin 
Pranis of Justice Strategies, a New York-based research organization, 
is that Wisconsin currently is incarcerating 2,900 low-level, 
nonviolent drug offenders with very limited criminal backgrounds who 
are in need of drug treatment.

Wisconsin taxpayers are paying a whopping $83 million a year to lock 
up people who are not endangering anyone other than themselves.

Any true conservative would wonder if there might possibly be a way 
to cut such an enormous government expenditure that often returns 
ex-offenders to the community more dangerous and less employable than 
they were before going to prison.

The obvious answer is spelled out by Justice Strategies. The average 
cost of prison in Wisconsin is $28,622 per prisoner. High-quality, 
community-based drug treatment with wrap-around support services 
would cost a fraction of that, $6,100 per person, plus less than 
$2,000 per person for probation supervision.

Of course, everyone already knows drug treatment works better than 
prison in dealing with addictions. That's why middle-class and 
upper-class families seek treatment when a parent or a child has a 
drug or alcohol problem.

Addiction is a medical problem for anyone who has insurance or the 
financial means to pay for treatment. It is only a criminal problem 
among the poor.

Wisconsin stands out nationwide for its alarming overuse of 
incarceration for African-American, nonviolent, first-time drug 
offenders, according to an introduction to the study.

That has been the driving force behind the state's most publicly 
embarrassing racial distinction. Wisconsin ranks No. 1 with the 
highest rate of incarceration of African Americans of any state in 
the nation, according to the Sentencing Project.

Remember when we sophisticates used to look down on racially ignorant 
states like Mississippi and Alabama? Now, we've become Mississippi and Alabama.

Justice Strategies documents the blatant racial disparity. African 
Americans make up just 6 percent of Wisconsin's population, but 
account for 47 percent of the state's prisoners and 64 percent of 
those incarcerated for drug offenses.

African Americans in Wisconsin are 15 times more likely to be 
incarcerated than whites and 40 times more likely than whites to be 
incarcerated for nonviolent drug offenses.

There is nothing conservative about a system that continues to pour 
billions of tax dollars into a bottomless hole while tearing apart 
our most vulnerable families and communities.

A conservative's dream would be a system that improved people's lives 
by treating drug and alcohol addiction while saving taxpayers three 
to four times as much money as the state spends.

That is exactly what Justice Strategies proposes. Researchers Greene 
and Pranis estimated that spending just $10 million a year for 
comprehensive, community-based treatment for individuals who would 
otherwise be incarcerated would reduce prison costs by $30 million to 
$40 million a year.

Actually, it would be good politics for conservative state 
Republicans to take the lead in reforming the current system of 
over-incarceration that wastes not only tax dollars but human lives.

That is because Justice Strategies laid many of disparities in the 
current system squarely on the office of Democratic District Attorney 
E. Michael McCann of Milwaukee County.

In mid-year 2002, for instance, there were more people in prison for 
nonviolent drug offenses prosecuted in Milwaukee 1,520 than in all of 
the other 71 counties combined 1,370.

Those convicted of nonviolent drug crimes accounted for nearly one 
third of the growth in prisoners coming from Milwaukee in the last 10 years.

In many states, it is uncommon for anyone convicted of low-level drug 
sales to be sent to prison unless he has a prior felony conviction. 
In Wisconsin, however, nearly half of the prisoners serving time for 
nonviolent drug offenses have no prior felonies.

The report quotes an assistant district attorney who formerly headed 
the drug unit saying: "Our office takes the position that there's no 
such thing as a nonviolent, small-time drug dealer."

Actually, there are plenty of petty drug crimes. It's the collateral 
damage from over-incarceration of nonviolent, first-time drug 
offenders that is costly and destructive to our state.

Maybe we should try a more conservative approach of providing 
economical, effective drug treatment to hold families together and 
improve people's lives. 
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake