Wisconsin gains international attention..for their costly, failed policy on Corrections

Just ahead of November’s elections The Economist looked at the Corrections policies of two Upper Midwest states with Governor’s seats up for election and noted “Wisconsin Is Twice as Likely to Imprison People as Minnesota”.

Why is this happening? The Economist notes that while both states have put more people in prison over the last 40 years, Wisconsin saw its population grow more than twice as fast as Minnesota’s, and Wisconsin taxpayers pay a lot of money as a result. This is especially true as inmates stay longer and get older behind bars.

The states diverged after the 1970s, when “liberals in Wisconsin saw ourselves as twinned with Minnesota”, says Kenneth Strait, a researcher in Wisconsin. Inmate populations (in prison and county-run jails) rose fast, partly because of hardening sentences in both states. Minnesota had locked away 132 inhabitants per 100,000 in 1978, which jumped to 434 people by 2015, says the Vera Institute of Justice. Wisconsin’s sentencing was tougher still: its inmate population leapt from 178 to 925 per 100,000 residents.

Wisconsin’s 35,000-strong jail and prison population now far exceeds Minnesota’s 16,000. Wisconsin’s prisons guzzle state funds at twice the rate of next door: $150 is spent for every Wisconsinite to $74 per Minnesotan. A growing body of elderly lifers with soaring medical bills will push costs much higher. At times, state funding for prisons—about $1.2bn, or $38,000 per prisoner yearly—exceed spending on Wisconsin’s university system.

Oh, it’s not “at times”. Every year since Walker took office that Corrections spending has exceeded the amount of state tax dollars that go into the UW System, including the Fiscal Year that just ended on June 30, and the one that we are currently in.

Even the Governor that presided over “lock em up” measures like Truth in Sentencing (promoted by a 30-something suburban legislator named Scott Walker) now admits that mentality hasn’t worked out well for Wisconsin.

Tommy Thompson, a Republican governor for 14 years, also regrets overseeing a boom in prisoners. “We warehouse them. Constantly building prisons is not the way to go. Minnesota is not, and their crime is no worse than ours”, he says. He is keen to lead a reform programme, but says state politicians “are afraid as hell” of change. Mr Walker won’t even visit his own prisons, declaring there’s “no value” in doing so.

What could reform include? Mr Thompson wants vocational studies and early release for perhaps one-third of current prisoners. Kelly Mitchell, of the Robina Institute at the University of Minnesota, says various combined efforts are needed. A start would be setting up an independent sentencing commission like one she used to run in Minnesota. It advises legislators on how any new law would affect prison numbers and its cost to taxpayers. Even tough-on-crime legislators soon turn more cautious when obliged to include such information in their bills, she says.

A rethink of sentencing also makes sense. Minnesota has reduced penalties for infractions such as drug offences, as it tries to cut revocations. The state also uses problem-solving courts that aim to correct non-violent offenders’ behaviour without recourse to jail time. The rewards such courts offer can be as cheap as cinema or bus tickets, or applause from judges, lawyers and parole officers, but they work.

But smart policy means that Republicans can’t pander to fearful suburba-trash who think that people (of color) who committed a crime are second-class citizens, and keeping "those people" second-class allows the suburba-trash to claim moral superiority for their mediocre lives.

The Republican Governors' Association is still trying this 20th Century playbook in their latest ad in Wisconsin.

ELECTION: New RGA TV ad knocks Evers for ‘dangerous idea’ to cut prison population in half https://t.co/pKrRnwxkUz pic.twitter.com/Iy6KlCrcpr

— WisPolitics.com (@wispolitics) October 19, 2018

The use of the Soccer Mom is a nice touch. And given that race-baiting talk radio is a major influence in WisGOP, Wisconsinites continue to have to pay big bills while the state’s largest metro area stagnates in no small part because of the economic apartheid that WisGOP policies promote.

The Economist also notes that Minnesota is more likely to have local governments handle smaller criminal cases, instead of locking up those criminals at the state level.

One of the biggest differences is that Minnesota sends only convicted felons to prison, giving counties and jails charge of those awaiting trial or whose offences are minor. Counties and jails turn out to be likelier to release offenders for (cheaper) community supervision. That only works, however, given enough funds for treating mental health and addiction, plus training for those who supervise offenders.

Wisconsin needs change there. Lower spending on its social services means addicts and the mentally ill are “consciously channelled into prison,” argues Ms [Pamela] Oliver, the [UW-Madison] sociologist. She says local authorities have a financial incentive to push patients off their own welfare budget and into state-funded prisons. That helps explain why so many mentally ill people are behind bars. The msdf, for example, reports that 62% of inmates have diagnosed mental-health problems. That no sunlight penetrates its double layer of walls and tinted windows may be a factor, too.

And part of the reason that those troubled individuals are “consciously channeled into prison” is because cash-starved local governments in Wisconsin often don’t have the resources to handle the increased social services that a Minnesota-style system would require. Instead, Wisconsin has strangled local governments in the Age of Fitzwalkerstan in order for Walker and WisGOP to have a talking point of “local property taxes”.

This has put some communities into desperate situations. Ashland County asked its citizens back in August whether they should raise their property taxes by $1 million to handle the extra costs that have resulted from a 150% increase in drug arrests in the last 6 years and spiraling costs to place children in out-of-home care. The referendum failed, but you can bet it won’t be the last time we’ll hear about local communities needing to come up with more money to handle addiction and mental health needs that seem to multiply by the year.

But in the absence of new thinking and investments at the state level, the cycle of costly Corrections and subpar social outcomes continues in Wisconsin. And it won’t stop until Walker and WisGOP are thrown out by the taxpayers that have had to shell out big bucks for the regressive policies that are now getting international attention….and derision.