A report released last week from a commission of legislators, officials and community leaders is offering Wisconsin?s criminal justice system several recommendations for addressing widespread racial disparities.

Reports from the Office of Justice Assistance helped prompt the organization of the Commission on Reducing Racial Disparities, which made recommendations to local municipalities and the Department of Corrections on how to better deal with criminals.

Blacks are currently more than six times more likely to be arrested for drug offenses and 15 times more likely to be arrested for drug sales than whites, although young white adults are reported to use drugs more frequently than blacks.

Commission co-chair Sen. Spencer Cobbs, D-Milwaukee, said one of the commission?s recommendations is to increase state funds for substance abuse programs in prisons for nonviolent offenders.

?They can become a more productive citizen and get rid of a drug habit,? Cobbs said. ?It makes dollars and sense.?

The report also said there are more blacks currently in prison than whites, while Wisconsin?s white population is more than 14 times greater than the black population.

Cobbs said the members recommended there be a monitoring commission to make sure racial disparities are being reduced all over the state and to uphold recommendations made in the official report.

He added the commission is currently trying to push some of the recommendations through the Legislature.

?We want the monitoring commission to make a report to the Legislature annually to see what is going on,? Cobbs said.

Rep. Garey Bies, R-Sister Bay, was contacted by Gov. Jim Doyle?s office to be a part of the commission after 30 years of experience in law enforcement. Bies said the aim of the recommendations is to serve the public good by giving people the tools to get back into society.

?The goal is to have them be a taxpayer, not a tax spender,? Bies said when referring to released prisoners.

Another possible reason for disparities in Wisconsin?s prison system has to do with an offender?s ability to obtain a good lawyer, depending on his or her own financial resources.

Bies said he is currently proposing a piece of legislation that would increase the qualifications for public defenders and raise the number of defenders available.

University of Wisconsin sociology professor Pam Oliver was a member of the commission and described in an e-mail to The Badger Herald how she thinks racial disparities negatively affect the state.

?The mass incarceration of African-Americans is a disaster for their communities,? Oliver said. ?It puts young people who have been delinquent into networks that strengthen their ties to criminals and increases the prevalence of people with criminal ties in the community.?

Oliver said she anticipated recommendations from the commission to be observed in local municipalities and the Department of Corrections.

?I know that a lot of the leadership in Madison and Milwaukee is committed to implementing many of them, and I hope other communities will too,? Oliver said.

Correction: Due to a reporting error, Sen. Spencer Coggs? name was misspelled as Cobbs. We regret the error.