As the figure for the Wisconsin budget deficit climbs by the day, everybody is suddenly a fiscal conservative. At least those few who have read the state Constitution, which, perhaps inconveniently at this point in time, requires the budget to be balanced.

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 Wisconsin. Its skilful exploitation of the ’90s crime hysteria has wrought a social and fiscal sham that would make Robert La Follette weep for his beloved Badger State.

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 Wisconsin nearly doubled, from 10,551 to 20,555.

One might assume that would reflect a similarly heinous increase in crime. But alas, nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, Wisconsin‘s crime rate has been relatively static for decades. Between 1967 and 2005, the crime rate increased less than 1 percent, as the percentage of offenders rose from 4,024 per 100,000 to 4,609. But somehow quadrupling the prison population during that time made sense to the leaders in charge.

While the crime mania that gripped our state was indicative of a nationwide trend toward increasing sentences and building more jails, Wisconsin‘s approach was nevertheless considerably dumber than most other states. According to UW Political Science Professor Dennis Dresang,Wisconsin ranked second in the nation in prison expansion during the ’90s, it ranked 36th in crime reduction. In contrast, New York, which ranked first in the latter category, ranked 42nd in prison expansion. If you really want a stat that hurts, just look over at Minnesota. With a crime rate and population virtually identical to our own, the Gophers nevertheless imprison roughly a third as many people — approximately 7,000.

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 Milwaukee, whose citizens serve the GOP considerably better in jail than in voting booths. In fact, many rural legislators slathered over available prison contracts as Milwaukee offenders were exported to places far away from home — if not out of the state completely. (We rank second in sending prisoners out of state.)

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 Wisconsin. Although the moronic Republicans are out of power, the cowardly Democrats are now in, and if they want to get serious about prison reform, they will have to confront the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, one of the most powerful Democratic interests in the state.

But maybe, just maybe, if voters outside of Milwaukee start to recognize the price they’re paying for an unproductive policy, they will revolt and demand sensible policy.

Jack Craver ([email protected]) is a junior majoring in history.