The bill moving through the Capitol right now aimed at preventing felons from gaining employment will cost Wisconsin.

A bill proposed by State Rep. Joel Kleefisch, R-Oconomowoc, would permit employers to both refuse employment for applicants convicted of a felony and fire current employees with the same conviction, even if the felony is not related to the job.

Despite the budget problems this country is having, prisons haven’t made it into the public discussion. With politicians looking to make cuts everywhere, the reality that America incarcerates 25 percent of the world’s prison population at huge costs rarely comes up. Instead, in Wisconsin we have a bill being crafted that would make it even more difficult for ex-convicts to return to society, making it more likely that they will end up back in the system. This will cost the taxpayer even more. Preventing someone from gainful employment because of an unrelated mistake is completely counterintuitive.

Politicians in this country have used “tough on crime” as an empty electioneering tactic for years. The problem is that fear-based policies only get you so far. When it comes to people reentering the workforce, what we need is a dose of reality, not an expensive political gesture.

By preventing those trying to put their lives back together from getting a job, unemployment goes up. Qualified workers are denied jobs for no better reason than a mistake they already paid for. This bill extends the nation’s concept of punishment beyond a term of incarceration. Now a person who has paid for his mistakes with years in prison returns to society to find that he is no longer a citizen. He now has an official second-class citizenship where a genuine work ethic and commitment to improving oneself can be rejected outright from any opportunity for gainful employment.

This leads to another problem inherent in this bill: the increase in repeat offenders. Without jobs and structure, what do our elected officials think these individuals will do? We built a justice system not only to punish those people who broke the law, but also to rehabilitate them so that they could achieve a productive place in society. To toss that idea aside is to attack a pillar of our justice system.

The main problem here, as in so many of our country’s issues today, is an economic one. Providing greater hurdles for former inmates to clear in order to find employment will increase the rate of return to prison in Wisconsin. And that costs a lot of money. With the average prisoner costing $24,000 a year, policies like this one cannot pass.

In fact, with a party in power so fervent in its commitment to reducing budget deficits, the only kinds of prison bills on the table should revolve around punishments that keep people out of prison and programs that get people into jobs, not keep them out.

This bill will not only create a blockade against employment, it also will prevent any locality from deviating from the state’s standards. So a city like Madison, which strays from state standards in how it allows conviction records to be used in employment considerations, would have to fall in line.

This bill does not help anyone. People being released back into society need guidance, not hurdles. The taxpayer needs more people contributing to society, not more people being funneled back toward prison. This bill seems to have no goals beyond convincing the public that people who are trying to put their lives back together should be kept at arms reach and treated like the bogeyman. As much as I like Halloween, making that costume fit is way too expensive.

John Waters ([email protected]) is a junior majoring in journalism.