The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog

“You get in this cycle ‘it’s a minor crime,’ but when there are true victims, there are no minor crimes,” La Lor said.

The budget for corrections is about $1.2 billion, a cost that could double in the next 10 years if the state doesn’t develop new strategies, Raemisch said.

“There always will be a need for prisons to house violent criminals who pose a threat to public safety, but … we need to invest in strategies beyond prison expansion to curtail corrections spending and reduce recidivism,” Raemisch said.

The budget proposed by Gov. Jim Doyle for the next two years would start the state on that path.

The goal of the new strategy is to protect public safety by keeping violent offenders in prison, but providing opportunities for nonviolent offenders to complete treatment so they can succeed and become productive citizens when they return to their communities, Raemisch said. Under the proposed changes, offenders would be evaluated to determine the level of risk they pose to the community and provide services to help low-risk offenders.

The state would expand services in the Earned Release Program to provide services needed for successful reintegration in the community. Currently, drug and alcohol treatment are provided, but an offender may need education and job skills, Raemisch said. He said the goal is to provide what the offender needs.

“This whole do-the-crime, do-the-time strategy is taxing people out of their homes and probably closing schools as we build prisons,” said District Attorney Dan Blank.

Currently, 1 in 39 Wisconsin adults are under some form of control of the state’s corrections department, whether probation, extended supervision, local jails or prison, according to a study released Monday by the Pew Center, an independent nonprofit that uses analysis to improve public policy.

While 1 in 26 Minnesota adults are under some form of corrections control, the state’s prison population is only about 9,000, Raemisch said, suggesting there could be a better way to deal crime.

“If we reduce our population more, that just means less cost for criminal justice system, less crime, less victims, and the savings just goes on and on,” Raemisch said. “We’re talking about changing people’s lives and working in a positive nature, and that’s just going to help the state.” Of the 23,000 people currently in the state prison system, 3,000 automatically would be evaluated for risk when the law passes, he said. “That doesn’t mean they’ll get out of prison right away. It will take months and months.”

Since the 1990s, Blank said the state’s focus has been incarceration and getting tough on crime, when the state needs to be smart on crime.

“I think the important thing is this represents a philosophical change that recognizes the way we’ve done business probably is not as effective as we wanted it to be and it’s turned out to be horribly expensive,” Blank said. “We took the easy way out in a lot of cases and we started dumping people in the prison system because it looks like we’re tough on crime and that’s what gets headlines and votes.”

One of the things county officials hope to see come from this is an opportunity to reintegrate prison inmates in the community by using the county jails to house state prisoners and allow them a chance, under Huber work release, to get jobs to ensure a successful transition from incarceration to release in the community.

“I’d like to work with the sheriff’s on a re-entry program … and get them acclimated in the community,” Raemisch said.
http://www.superiortelegram.com/articles/index.cfm?id=33693§ion=News