PRISONS ARE STATES UNWISE, IMMORAL GROWTH INDUSTRY

The state budget is now on the governor's desk or on his Harley, as the
case may be. It will take months or even years before we know how many
special interest gifts are hidden in the document. But forget about those
favors for a moment and focus on the No. 1 growth industry in our state -
prisons.

In recent years, Wisconsin officials have embraced a "Field of Dreams"
scenario when it comes to prisons: If the state builds the cells, the
prisoners will come to fill them.

Where do all the prisoners come from? It's not that crime is on the
increase, because the opposite is true. But nothing bothers the Department
of Corrections or legislators more than empty beds. There were not enough
criminals to fill all these jail cells under the old rules, so legislators
created new crimes, imposed longer sentences and demanded "truth" in
punishment in order to pack the cellblocks.

And it is all done in the name of "growing the economy." Make no mistake:
Prisons are considered part of economic development in our state. Few
legislators push for prisons in major cities. They choose rural areas with
high unemployment rates: Stanley, Redgranite and, of course, Boscobel.
Prisons mean jobs. If we lose J.I. Case, Golden Books, Danfoss and other
traditional industries - as we have in recent years - then Wisconsin
necessarily must find new industries that won't leave our state for Mexico
or Germany.

As long as prisons bring jobs and extra spending money to a community, it
is difficult to imagine local politicians taking a sensible approach to
sentencing decisions, not to mention parole. Why would you want people out
on parole if that would cut down on our prison population, reduce state
spending and perhaps jeopardize the status of the local industry, er, prison?

Remember the make-believe headline during the Cold War that would have been
in the Wall Street Journal: "Peace breaks out, markets tumble"? Imagine if
nonviolent prisoners were paroled, or those with addictions were treated
outside our prisons. Wisconsin's local markets would tumble.

The question is whether it is wise - let alone moral - to imprison people
in order to make a buck.

Ask yourself: Should we place people in prison for possession of illegal
drugs or alcoholism? I suspect that a poll of Wisconsin residents would
find that they would prefer inexpensive and effective out-of-prison
alternatives to an annual $20,000-$30,000 tab for each prisoner. And make
no mistake, a lot of the people filling our prisons are there not because
they are dangerous but because they suffer from untreated addictions.

When you start putting people with addictions in prison, rather than
treating them, the cellblocks start to fill pretty quickly. Back in 1987,
Wisconsin had about 5,000 prisoners and today we have over 21,000. Think
about the money if not the failed policy. The expenditures in this budget
for prisons, without counting construction costs, will be nearly $850
million. That reflects a 9.8 percent increase from the last budget, and
there is no end in sight.

Here is the tragedy: Anyone seeking the governor's chair will talk common
sense about this issue at his or her peril. Believe me, I tried three years
ago and Tommy stuck it to me. A fancy mailer went to hundreds of thousands
of homes depicting a young man with his arm raised while an elderly woman
cowered. The message on the front: "One Candidate for Governor wants this
man on the street."

This brochure was followed by a Thompson television commercial that would
put the Willie Horton folks to shame. Because I had discussed alternatives
to incarceration for the nonviolent offender, beefing up parole and
probation and permitting our judges to exercise discretion as they had
since 1848, the cheap-shot response was not a debate on policy, it was an
attack alleging that Garvey wants criminals roaming the neighborhood. And
the Wisconsin State Journal was quick to defend the Thompson commercials:
"It is no surprise that Thompson's ad would accuse Garvey of preparing to
throw open the jailhouse doors. This is no Willie Horton ad. It's true."

Of course, it was a Willie Horton ad. A classic Willie Horton ad. And the
State Journal editors knew as much. But they also knew that Tommy Thompson
was their candidate. In addition, they wanted to help Tommy deliver a punch
right in my political gut.

Thompson knew I was right. He had essentially ended parole to avoid
criticism from conservatives, a move that sent our prison population
upward. The legislators and the attorney general, not to be outdone by
Thompson, called for elimination of any discretion by sentencing judges,
elimination of early release programs, and a focus on punishment in prison
rather than rehabilitation. These policies may please editorial writers and
prison guards, but there is no legislator who honestly believes they do
anything to ensure that people coming out of prison will be ready to lead a
normal life.

When I was growing up in Wisconsin, we saw the fact of going to prison as
punishment, and the mandate of the Department of Corrections was to
encourage prisoners to learn to read, pick up a trade, get ready for a
useful life. We certainly did not see it as a growth industry. Gov. Scott
McCallum, Assembly Speaker Scott Jensen and the "I'm tougher than you are
on crime and punishment" Democrats would like you to forget that these
prisoners will be getting out eventually. When they rejoin society, do we
want a person who can read and write living next door? Or someone who went
into prison illiterate - as roughly 50 percent of our prisoners do - and
came out the same way?

Do we want to spend $125,000 on a young man arrested for possession of
marijuana and sentenced to five years, or would we make more progress
spending that money on all-day kindergarten? Do we want a person arrested
for driving after revocation of his license to spend two years in prison at
a cost to us of at least $50,000, or would it be better to have him
involved in community service and driving programs? Does it make sense to
pour money into prisons that don't work, or should our state adequately
fund our technical schools?

As we begin the long march to the 2000 gubernatorial election, will there
be a debate on this issue or a quiet wink and nod among the candidates?
Will we hear even one candidate suggest that it is embarrassing that the
great state University of Wisconsin's No. 1 competitor is not Michigan in
math, Chicago in law, or Purdue in engineering, but rather spending for
prisons in Wisconsin?

When politicians talk about "truth in sentencing" should they not also tell
us how much it costs when a young man spends 10 years behind bars? Wouldn't
you like to see the full story every time television and the papers
announce a sentence? Instead of "Joe Jones received 10 years without
parole," the story would go, "Joe Jones received 10 years without parole at
a minimum cost to the taxpayers of $250,000."

That might get people's attention. Indeed, in an era when every candidate
seems to be running as a tax-cutter, numbers like that might even get the
attention of the men and women who seek to serve as governor.

Ed Garvey, a Madison attorney and the 1998 Democratic nominee for governor
of Wisconsin, is a columnist for The Capital Times