Opinion

Benedetto a fresh face for sheriff’s office

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• Hanson for Dane County Sheriff (November 6, 2006)
• Mann up (December 11, 2008)
• Progressive Dane's good intentions have poor execution (December 10, 2008)
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The broadest gap in the Dane County sheriff’s race may not be between Republican incumbent Gary Hamblin’s and Green Party challenger Adam Benedetto’s ideologies. Rather, the starkest contrast is the difference between Hamblin’s 35 years of law enforcement experience and Benedetto’s, well, none. But 27-year-old Benedetto brings some exciting new ideas to the race and is just the outsider needed to shake up some of the issues recently surrounding local law enforcement.

Benedetto’s preference for non-aggressive police crowd-control — at the forefront of dialogue again after this weekend — crystallized at the U.S. Mayors Conference protest where he first announced his candidacy for sheriff. He describes a more discursive model for communication between law enforcement and local citizens, with an eye toward averting the sort of uncomfortable disaster State Street saw Saturday.

Significantly, he plans to alter the county’s policies on criminalized narcotics and redistribute funds and energies to programs, such as automobile efficiency programs, designed to benefit the community. Hamblin, a relatively liberal Republican, still fails on drug-enforcement policies that Madison residents and students perceive as too harsh.

Benedetto’s other plans include measures to thin the county’s overcrowded jail system with active rehabilitation programs (he especially notes the disproportionate percentage of minority inmates), and he resists Hamblin’s urges for new county jail buildings and facilities — a smart move to save costs, and just another factor that tips the scale toward the younger candidate.