PROBATION STUDY SHOVED UNDER RUG

Panel Sought Offender Options For Era Of Truth-in-sentencing

Seven months after a 12-member task force handpicked by then-Gov. Tommy G.
Thompson came up with suggestions for improving probation for the
truth-in-sentencing era, the panel's recommendations are in danger of being
discarded without ever being considered.

With a burgeoning prison population expected to serve longer fixed terms
that can't be altered if penitentiaries get too crowded, an enhanced form
of probation was seen as a necessary ingredient of truth-in-sentencing even
before it took effect.

However, a report from the task force told to review probation has yet to
be published seven months after completion.

Formed three months before truth-in-sentencing began on Dec. 31, 1999, the
task force was told by Thompson to address judges' concerns about the
quality of probation.

"The task force's goal was to offer recommendations, including proposed
legislation, to strengthen probation and provide for the courts more
alternatives to imprisonment," the panel noted in the report, which is yet
to be published.

In Wisconsin, the prison population has tripled in the past 10 years to 20,195.

Members of the task force studied probation like it's never been studied in
Wisconsin:

They surveyed judges about perceived strengths and weaknesses of the
probation system and their willingness or reluctance to use it. They heard
from agents who complained that there was little or no treatment available
for drug and alcohol abuse even though an estimated 70% or more of the
state's criminals have such addictions. They were told of a high turnover
of agents in Milwaukee, where as many as 75 agents at any given time were
entry-level. And they identified the kinds of probationers most apt to fail
on supervision.

The committee's mere scrutiny spurred improvement in some areas of
probation, and judges are recognizing real progress, but it's not as
significant as the changes envisioned as necessary by the task force.

"My argument is that we need to improve community corrections now in order
to forestall another substantial prison growth several years from now,"
said Reserve Judge Thomas Barland, task force chairman and retired Eau
Claire County judge.

The most significant single improvement advocated by the panel was
establishing enhanced probation in Milwaukee.

Intensive probation would cost about $8,800 a year per person compared with
$1,500 for traditional probation. But it is less than the estimated $20,000
it costs to house a inmate for a year, Barland said.

Since October 1999, when the panel was assembled, it held a series of
meetings in Madison and Milwaukee, quizzing state Department of Corrections
officials about probation; studying how probation is conducted in
Minnesota, which imprisons criminals at one-third the rate of Wisconsin;
hearing from the agents in the field; and surveying judges, among other things.

On April 6, in a meeting at the state Capitol, the task force began
drafting its report. During six conference calls over the next several
weeks, the committee pored over drafts of the report, tinkering with
language, statistics, grammar and the wording of five proposed law changes.

The proposals included:

Making the level of supervision correspond directly to the probationer's
performance, adding 70 agents in Milwaukee, providing housing and
transitional living beds when necessary for probationers, allocating more
resources for drug and alcohol treatment, and stepping up efforts to catch
absconders.

The panel was done with its work and its report by the end of July, but the
Thompson administration decided to delay the release until after Labor Day.
The reason: Once summer vacations were over, the news would attract greater
attention.

September came and went, however, with the report getting no attention.
Thompson was said to be too busy campaigning for then-Texas Gov. George W.
Bush, so the report would have to wait until after the presidential
election, it was decided.

When Bush was finally elected, he took Thompson with him to Washington as
health and human services secretary.

Dale Jellings, state Department of Corrections spokesman, said officials
there declined to comment on the report because it has not been formally
received. Jellings did say that Gov. Scott McCallum proposed a
"significant" increase in the amount of money for drug and alcohol abuse
counseling and halfway house beds for probationers with addictions in his
budget.