Opinion
Prisons reveal Legislature’s betrayal
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Also by Jack Craver:
- Ice ice baby, crimping my style (December 10, 2008)
- Prisons reveal Legislature's betrayal (December 3, 2008)
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As the figure for the
This is very inconvenient for a variety of worthy programs that will likely be pushed to the side during the recession, including BadgerCare Plus — which is supposed to provide health care to 98 percent of the state by the end of January.
So if everything goes wrong — a pattern that continues to gain momentum — the budget crisis will be very inconvenient for the elderly, the sick and students.
But let’s hope it’s especially inconvenient for prison contractors.
The prison lobby may very well be the single most destructive political force in
It’s no surprise that $1.2 billion is far too much money for a state of less than 6 million people to spend on prisons. However, the state government has nevertheless succeeded in convincing people that this enormous boondoggle is the product of the savages who roam our streets, rather than those who stroll the halls of our Legislature.
The problem started back when most of us were in preschool and continued throughout the decade, as building contractors looking for profits and legislators looking for power teamed up to exploit the group with the least amount of financial and political currency to offer: the urban poor.
The urban poor in Wisconsin offered a variety of benefits to politicians looking for a quick political posture, especially back in the days after the great Republican takeover in 1994, when both the governor’s mansion and the state Legislature were firmly in the hands of the GOP, which had a national mandate to get the poor off the welfare rolls.
While welfare to work was ideal, welfare to jail was of course the convenient fail-safe — and very likely the politically superior of the options. Gov. Tommy Thompson and his Republican allies were able to play the tough-on-crime card with rural and suburban constituents, as well as reward the governor’s biggest financial benefactor — the prison building industry — which donated $1.38 million to his campaigns from 1993 to 2000.
Thompson rewarded his contributors with enthusiasm. The first step was to exempt crime bills from the fiscal estimates that accompany all other types of legislation. As UW professor of law Ken Streit explained, “that meant that a legislator could propose a solution (often requiring imprisonment) without having to explain how much it would cost and how it would be paid for.”
Since 1995, the state has constructed eight prisons, corresponding of course with the explosion in prison sentences doled out by judges. Between 1995 and 2000, the incarcerated population in
One might assume that would reflect a similarly heinous increase in crime. But alas, nothing could be further from the truth. In fact,
While the crime mania that gripped our state was indicative of a nationwide trend toward increasing sentences and building more jails,
Of course, to most legislators, the fiscal and social implications of prison mania were unfortunate but certainly not worth risking a career on. To Republicans the results were nothing short of praiseworthy. The massive incarceration of non-violent offenders, mostly for drug or property offenses, mainly targeted low-income areas of
And the cycle continues. In the last budget, the Department of Corrections requested an increase of $255 million — and received $288 million instead.
I have very little hope for
But maybe, just maybe, if voters outside of
Jack Craver (craver@wisc.edu) is a junior majoring in history.
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If you are going to compare the number of people in prison to the crime rate don’t use that absolute number of prisoners and the per capita crime rate. Otherwise we can’t know if the quadrupling of prisoners was just due a quadrupling of the population of the state.
“Otherwise we can’t know if the quadrupling of prisoners was just due a quadrupling of the population of the state.”
Which took 120 years.
Hey, prison guards need jobs!
“Which took 120 years.”
Which was pointed out by you, but not included in the column. Hence my critique of the way the column was written, not the argument itself.
The article is accurate in many respects, the right wing beat their collective chests with truth and sentencing, etc and got elected doing so. But they forgot to tell the voters-taxpayers how much it would costs and now both are crying about what they enacted and voted for. I for one dont think Wisconsin needed the toughest truth in sentencing law in the country, it was a huge mistake. Its not about not being tough on crime its about promoting expensive gimmicks to get elected regardless of future costs. One thing i dont understand in the comments already posted and the article is that blame is being pointed at the union representing the brave employees that work in Wisconsins overcrowded correctional institutions. The union had nothing to do with truth in sentencing becoming law and certainly the blame cant be put on the indivdual correctional officers. Aim your anger in the right direction and that is at the dysfunctional legislature that exsisted at these times and dont forget, it was under the control of the right wing for the majority of the time period in question.
The prison lobby? Who the hell is the prison lobby!?! I’ve been in Wisconsin politics for twenty years and never heard of such tripe.
It would be nice if there were such a thing.
There is no organized effort to build or expand prisons. The DoC is the red-headed step-child of state agencies. It is invariably underfunded and the prisons are overcrowded.
Your column is ill sourced, ill informed, and naive. Perhaps you should re-examine your postulates.