Politicians, Prisons and Crime
by TChris
Commissions and study groups have repeatedly told Wisconsin's lawmakers that its soaring prison population burdens the state's taxpayers while doing little to prevent recidivism.
[T]hese groups of judges, attorneys, correctional officials, business people and academics offered wide-ranging solutions that emphasized more programming in prisons, closer supervision and treatment in the community and establishing some intermediate form of sanction between probation and prison.
Why hasn't the advice been heeded? As in other states, Wisconsin's politicians fear the consequences of being labeled "soft on crime."
"There's one answer to this: politics," said state Sen. Fred Risser, D-Madison, who has seen just about every effort at correctional reform in his 48 years in the Legislature. "Trying to develop long-range programs that don't show immediate results is not the best thing to campaign on."
Politicians also worry about jobs that depend on incarceration rates. Wisconsin's ratio of correctional employees to inmates is nearly one to three. The Wisconsin State Journal explores proposals for reform that have been offered to and rejected by the state's legislature.
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