I am consistently baffled by the lack of general interest and understanding displayed by my peers in relation to our state and national legal systems. The persistence of a state system of incarceration that imprisons at rates and in ways that cost state taxpayers tens of millions of dollars, wantonly restricts the liberty of our citizens and makes us less safe remains below the surface, not interesting or vital enough to trump the next debate on how much of the city budget should go towards snow removal.

For those of us who are watching, news in the last few weeks — both nationally and locally — has been of a different sort after four decades of the same. The combination of a crashing economy and Democratic popularity — mostly the former — has led to measures in states throughout the nation (as well as our own) to reform the justice system in the interest of fiscal necessity.

In Kansas and Maryland there have been serious discussions about repealing the use of the death penalty to save money. This past week, the New York Assembly approved legislation to repeal 1970s era drug laws which imposed mandatory prison terms for many non-violent drug offenses (something very similar occurred in Florida as well).

And, as has been covered in this paper, Gov. Jim Doyle’s budget released last month puts the pieces in motion to once again allow the early release of non-violent drug offenders in Wisconsin, saving a projected $27 million in state expenditures. Though I in no way consider myself a Doyle homer, he does deserve considerable credit for this move. However, while it certainly represents an important step towards necessary reform, it is nonetheless an altogether small one.

What is truly needed is a large step. Essentially, what Doyle has done is to cut off the most rotten part from the greater spoilage that is truth-in-sentencing legislation. If serious reform is to take place and substantial improvement of our incarceration system is to be accomplished, the rest of the spoilage must go, too.

Truth-in-sentencing legislation was signed into law in 1999 to eliminate the option of parole in our state. The intent was greater safety by keeping convicted offenders in prison, and the costs were unimportant and irrelevant to the lawmakers who championed it.

But as with any legislative action, costs — both fiscal and human — are fundamentally relevant. Had the legislation been executed perfectly with no unintended consequences, the price tag would have been staggering. However, the message the enactment of this legislation sent to judges around the state was that the populous wanted offenders locked up for longer. Accordingly, judges decided they wanted to retain their jobs, which resulted in them handing down significantly longer sentence lengths on top of the new legislation, which had effectively done just the same. If you happened to be sentenced the day after truth-in-sentencing was signed into law, the time you spent in prison would be almost surely twice as long as if you had been sentenced the day before.

The monetary costs of this were immense. When we consider the $27 million Doyle’s recent move will save the state by repealing just one aspect of truth-in-sentencing, one can begin to see the magnitude of the potential savings offered if we find the political courage to repeal all of this failed legislation.

Even more important than the price tag is that the costs do not provide greater safety in the long-run. Now, of course it is important to ensure that our system of punishment effectively serves the purposes of deterrence and immediate safety. But, the notion that throwing people in prison for longer and longer makes our communities safer ignores the basic reality that almost all of these offenders are going to be released in our lifetime. By putting off the problem (which in this case includes depriving the freedom of one in 100 citizens), it does not cease to exist; it just festers and grows until it can express itself again. The end-goal of the debate should be former offenders’ successful re-entry into society, not the length of their next trip back to the slammer.

And this is where the average individual’s knowledge of the legal system comes back into play. It is not some abstract and demonic entity of “the state” which creates the political will to allow such failures to dominate our system of incarceration. It is our family and friends who continue to make irrational “tough on crime” legislation politically rewarding. With a little more general interest and understanding, I find it quite reasonable to envision a majority of our states population coming to the realization that truth-in-sentencing legislation and its many corollaries represent nothing more than the failure of human empathy and compassion. And that is when we will be able to take large steps instead of small ones.

Alec Slocum ([email protected]) is a junior majoring in philosophy and legal studies.