If you ever want to start a conversation filled with misinformation and misguided solutions, bring up the topic of corrections reform. I was reminded of that over the past few days after watching the Democratic candidates for Governor debate and the Winnebago County Board meeting. It is clear that those involved in the discussion have no idea who is actually sitting behind bars.
In the Democratic debate we heard plenty about prison overcrowding and how the state should not build another corrections facility–since “too many of the wrong people” are locked up right now anyways. Kelda Roys even claims that she has a plan to cut Wisconsin’s prison population in half if elected. What was never mentioned once in the debate is the 2016 Department of Corrections audit that listed the percentage of the inmate population by criminal conviction.
The main talking point among liberals now is that we have too many people incarcerated due to “minor drug offenses”. During the Winnebago County Board meeting we got a double dose of this misinformation–as supporters of legalizing marijuana use claimed people are getting locked up for just having a joint on them. Would you like to take a guess as to what the most common crime is among Wisconsin’s prison population is? It’s sexual offenses–representing 28% of the inmates currently detained. Number 2 is murder/homicide/attempted homicide–that is nearly 20%. Robbery is number three at 13%. Assaults are fourth at ten percent. Burglary is fifth at five percent. Battery is sixth at five percent–and repeat drunk driving offenses are seventh at about five percent.
Drug possession convictions–starting with intent to deliver–followed by manufacturing and delivering take up the next spots at a total of less than seven percent of the prison population. Simple possession–and that is usually nultiple convictions of that offense–represents just one-point-six percent of those men locked up in Wisconsin prisons. And lest you think that possession charges fill up our county jails, Sheriff John Matz informed the County Board this week, he’s got two inmates currently being held on that charge.
So when you consider that 85% of our prison population is behind bars for violent crimes that endangered public safety, where is Kelda Roys going to find the 50% that she wants to set free? And Winnebago County’s diversion programs are already filled to capacity with so many people on electronic and GPS monitoring that the Sheriff’s Department really can’t take on any more cases. And when people talk about how we need to use probation and parole as alternatives to incarceration, keep in mind that more than 67-hundred prison inmates currently behind bars are there because their probation and parole was revoked. They were given the chance to remain free and stay out of further trouble–and they simply could not do it–even with the threat of long prison terms hanging over their heads.
Let’s stop pointing fingers at the justice system or our laws for the high rates of incarceration in Wisconsin and in the US–and assign the blame to where it really belongs: a society that has decided that it is not going to live within the laws designed to protect the population.
