Gov. Jim Doyle’s new budget proposal would change some operational procedures at state correctional facilities to make the system more efficient as a whole.
The budget plan is currently under the review of the state Legislature and would delay the opening of two new prisons until after the 2003-2005 biennium budget, which already has a $3.2 billion deficit.
Doyle’s plan would also relocate non-violent offenders in order to make the state’s correctional facilities more efficient and cost-effective.
“About half of the offenders in the prison system are revocations,” said Department of Corrections spokesman Bill Clausius. “Doyle’s plan creates an alternative to revocation treatment: getting people into jobs, getting the person back on track.”
Clausius said the plan would make 150 beds at the Sturtevant correctional facility available for a minimum-security, workhouse-style program, which would offer offenders up to 90 days of treatment and community service.
Clausius said 600 offenders would go through the program each year. Considering 38 percent of inmates released from correctional facilities return, the program would yield an estimated 400 rehabilitated inmates per year.
“This revamped facility would be less expensive to operate than a minimum or maximum security prison,” Clausius said.
Rep. Sheryl Albers, R-Reedsburg and vice chair of the Assembly Committee on Corrections and Courts, says Doyle’s plan could go further.
“One of the suggestions I made to Corrections Secretary Matt Frank on the day of Doyle’s budget presentation was to put prisoners in facilities designed to meet their individual needs,” Albers said. “My district is in Juneau County has one of the highest rates of unemployment in the state.”
Albers’s district is home to the newly completed New Lisbon correctional facility, one of the centers that would not be opened for at least two years under Doyle’s plan.
Albers said that unemployment and crime have a reciprocal relationship and that it would be terrible irony if crime went up in her district because opportunities to create jobs, such as the opening of the new prison, were not taken advantage of.
“They’re talking about moving prisoners into a prison that is under construction, I’ve got a prison that’s done,” Albers said. “If we can’t find a correctional use for it, like the governor said in his budget presentation, we should evaluate our assets. I’d like to see it sold.”
Albers said she had heard reports that every year the prison is mothballed the cost of reopening increases. Doyle’s plan also allots special facilities for Alcohol or Drug Assessment cases.
“Doyle’s idea is, ‘let’s give AODA treatment at one facility.’ That’s great, but there are other people with other needs,” Albers said. “Maybe all the people with mental health needs should be transferred to New Lisbon.”
Doyle also plans to expand the anti-drug boot camp at St. Croix Correctional Center, possibly by utilizing the Black River facility.
“I like the boot camp concept, and I’ve also proposed New Lisbon be used as the site for such a boot camp,” Albers said. “We shouldn’t be [releasing people into] the community before they’ve been properly rehabilitated.”
