The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog

Known as truth in sentencing, the policy -- which had the blessing of then-Attorney General Jim Doyle -- took effect Dec. 31, 1999. It replaced the possibility of early release for good behavior, or parole, with a system where a 10-year sentence meant 10 years served. Time behind bars was followed by years out of prison under extended state supervision.

Because inmates under the then-existing parole system were only serving, on average, about 50 percent of their sentences, Lew and about a dozen colleagues estimated the truth in sentencing program would contribute to a Department of Corrections budget increase of $50 million to $70 million a year. Their estimates hit the mark.

Between 1999 and 2009, the Wisconsin Department of Corrections' budget grew 71 percent, from $700 million to $1.2 billion, or an average of $50 million a year, according to information released earlier this month by the Council of State Governments Justice Center, a national organization funded in part through the U.S. Department of Justice.

"Truth in sentencing is one of the reasons we have so many people in prison right now," said Lew, a 36-year veteran of the state corrections system who retired in 2006. "We are bankrupting ourselves."

The national organization further found that statewide between 2000 and 2007, the number of reported violent crimes increased by 28 percent, from 12,700 incidents to 16,296, and the prison population grew 14 percent, from 20,508 to 23,476. A majority of inmates are incarcerated because they re-offend or violate the terms of their release. In 2007, 55 percent of prison inmates had violated terms of their parole, probation or extended supervision or were re-offenders who had committed a new crime.

If a crime policy is gauged by its ability to lower crime rates and rehabilitate inmates to prevent return trips to prison, then truth in sentencing has failed. Costs are also up, threatening to become even more of a burden on an already cash-strapped state. These facts are not lost on state policy makers, who reached out last year to a national organization for policy assistance. While that group is delivering its recommendations to the Legislature this week, Governor Doyle has already put forward changes in his 2009-2011 budget, which is attempting to close a $5.2 billion deficit. The governor's plan proposes new ways for inmates who exhibit good behavior to get out of prison early. Parole, though not referred to as such, would make a comeback. Under these guidelines, roughly 1,000 inmates immediately would be ready for early release. More would be eligible in the months and years ahead.

Not surprisingly, the plan has critics, including state Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen, victim's rights advocates and the Wisconsin Sheriffs and Deputy Sheriffs Association.

At a press conference earlier this month, Van Hollen argued that undoing truth in sentencing by "opening up prison doors is indefensible." He said the state should instead spend money on alternatives to incarceration in appropriate cases.

But Department of Corrections Secretary Rick Raemisch, who worked with Doyle on the proposals, says they are a step in the right direction.

"Inmates can go back one of two ways ... treated, with a positive attitude and a job skill, or they can go back angry," Raemisch said. "Under truth in sentencing there was no incentive for inmates to improve themselves behind bars. What's being proposed is the start of a major movement toward sentencing reform in Wisconsin."

Positive reinforcement

Joe Gunter, a 40-year-old Madison resident, has spent nine of the last 18 years behind bars. His offense: driving under the influence. His drinking problem began when his stint in the Army ended in 1990. Over the next two years, he was caught and sentenced four times. His drinking has cost him everything, he says, including his marriage and the ability to see his three children. On July 15 he was released from a minimum security prison after serving a two-year sentence for his ninth drunken driving offense.

Employed in the construction business, Gunter says he would have liked to have taken a vocational training course in prison, but the programs were full. He did attend a month-long alcohol treatment program during his most recent prison term, the first substance abuse help he received after multiple incarcerations. The help he received worked. He has been sober ever since.

"I don't disagree with the law for putting me in prison," Gunter said. "But I would have benefited from treatment sooner."

He said limited space in programs and general overcrowding is making the prison environment more hostile. "Guys were testy," he said. "There were more fights this time around."

The governor's budget policy recommendations, if approved by the Legislature, aim to ease some of the strain on the system due to swelling prison ranks. The objective is to entice inmates like Gunter to improve themselves by rewarding good behavior with a shot at early release.

Specifically, non-violent felons could get out of prison early through a beefed-up version of the "earned release program." The program began in 2004, but was only available to an extremely narrow subset of inmates that included non-violent felony offenders who needed alcohol or drug treatment. For a number of reasons, what now is being proposed is drastically different.

First, all but the most violent felons could earn release not only by participating in drug or alcohol treatment but by taking advantage of educational, employment readiness and vocational training opportunities while in prison. Upon completing a program, the inmate would need approval from the Earned Release Review Commission, the new name for the Parole Commission, before being released into the community and onto extended supervision.

The state estimates roughly 1,000 felons would be immediately eligible for early release. Sex offenders and the top two categories of the most violent felons would never be eligible for early release.

Second, the proposals would be retroactive to Dec. 31, 1999, the date truth in sentencing took effect, making sentences handed down during the past 10 years up for change.

The retroactive nature is the most troubling part of what is being proposed, said Karen Rengert, president of the Wisconsin Victim/Witness Professionals Association. Although violent offenders would not be eligible for release, non-violent offenders, such as burglars, thieves or embezzlers, can make a victim feel as violated as does a person who suffers a physical attack, she said.

"Since 1999, we've been able to say to victims, if somebody is sentenced for five years, five years means five years," Rengert said. "We feel we are breaking our promises to all the victims we told this to over the years."

She said she is also concerned that victims will learn of an assailant's early release by running into them in public.

"I can appreciate the fact that we have too many people in prisons," Rengert said. "But this isn't the answer."

The governor's recommendations follow several bipartisan moves designed to address the state's escalating prison population and associated costs.

Last year, Doyle, along with Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson, Sen. Fred Risser, D-Madison, and then-Assembly Speaker Mike Huebsch, R-West Salem, sought assistance from the Council of State Governments Justice Center to help develop a policy that would reduce spending on corrections and increase public safety.

In January, the Wisconsin Legislative Council established the Special Committee on Justice Reinvestment Oversight, a bipartisan advisory group, to assist the national organization in its data analyses and development of policy options.

The organization will present state officials with its policy recommendations at 11 a.m. Wednesday, April 22, in Room 412 East at the Capitol.

Criminally inclined?

In his final days as chancellor of UW-Madison, John Wiley let loose on a number of issues facing Wisconsin in a sharply worded piece in the September 2008 issue of Madison Magazine.

Wiley not only blasted some legislators for their hostile stance toward the University of Wisconsin System, he also asked why Minnesota, a state with a population similar to Wisconsin's, had roughly 14,000 fewer people behind bars, 8,757 compared to Wisconsin's 22,966 inmates.

"Are Wisconsin citizens that much more criminally inclined?" he asked.

Or is Minnesota more selective about who it sends to prison?

"Minnesota reserves its prison beds for the most violent offenders," said Shari Burt, communications director for the Minnesota Department of Corrections.

In 2007, the most recent year data was available, 16,168 Minnesota residents were convicted of felonies, according to Suzanne Alliegro, executive director of the Minnesota Sentencing Guidelines Commission. Of those, 3,760 went to prison. The remaining 12,408 offenders were punished through a three-tier system that includes time in a county jail, probation or a combination of jail and probation time.

Burt said the state pays a subsidy to counties for jail space and reimburses a percentage of the salaries of county-level probation officers.

This process, in contrast to Wisconsin's system, adds up to big savings. For the 2009 fiscal year, Minnesota's Department of Corrections' budget is $472 million. Wisconsin's is $1.2 billion.

Because sentencing guidelines were not changed in 1999 to accompany the new truth in sentencing policy, prison costs rose as the state's sentencing system skewed toward longer confinements.

Prior to truth in sentencing, someone convicted of a burglary, for example, could have been sentenced to 10 years in prison. After serving 25 percent of their time, they were eligible for parole. If denied parole, they had to be released for good behavior after serving 66 percent of their sentence, or just over six years in prison. Upon release, the burglar was put on parole. In other words, 10 years never meant 10 years behind bars. Ten years meant anywhere from two to six years behind bars.

Under truth in sentencing, if that same burglar was sentenced to 10 years in prison, there is no chance to get out early. The same crime now holds the offender in prison for four to eight years longer. At a price of $30,000 a year, the costs to incarcerate offenders for longer sentences compound quickly.

"The major failing of the truth-in-sentencing model is that by getting rid of parole you are asking judges to predict too far into the future on how suited someone will be for release," said Dane County District Attorney Brian Blanchard. "No matter how smart any given judge is, I don't think that's logical. If prison is about correction, then we should care how they are doing in prison. The parole system was able to capture that."

Lew, who now teaches online criminal justice classes for the University of Phoenix, said communities will be safer if inmates are no longer incarcerated without any incentives for self-improvement. Truth in sentencing, he says, has run its course.

"The policy failed," said Lew, "Besides costing a lot of money, I don't know what else it accomplished."
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