DRUG TREATMENT COURT NEAR, CHISHOLM SAYS

Idea Gets Push From Report On Racial Prison Gap

District Attorney John Chisholm said Tuesday that Milwaukee County
is very close to getting some form of a drug treatment court - a
court in which the judiciary works with addiction experts to direct
drug offenders into treatment instead of prison.

"We will have one within the next six months," Chisholm said during a
news conference in Milwaukee held by Gov. Jim Doyle to announce a
multipronged approach to reduce racial disparity in the state's justice system.

One barrier to creating a drug treatment court, officials have said,
is a woeful lack of treatment options for low-level drug offenders.
Chisholm said he is working with officials at all levels of
government and with the private sector to find funding and to
increase those options.

"Incarceration is not the answer," Chisholm said.

Chisholm is a member of Doyle's Commission on Reducing Racial
Disparities, which in a February report suggested, among other
things, that "judges should recommend and encourage the use of new
adjudicative methods, including community-based sentencing alternatives."

It was that report - as well as two national studies released last
week that showed huge racial disparities in the arrests of Milwaukee
African-Americans on drug charges and even a greater racial disparity
in drug-related imprisonments - that brought the governor to Milwaukee.

One study, by Human Rights Watch, found that blacks are more than 42
times more likely than whites to be sent to prison for drug offenses.

"Even if we were to cut that number in half," Doyle said, "Wisconsin
would still have the greatest - or worst - disparity in the nation.

He said he didn't think that's a result of overt discrimination.

"But you cannot explain that number," Doyle said. "You just have to
face the fact that something is going on."

Doyle announced the creation of a four-person Racial Disparities
Oversight Commission, which will have the job of implementing the
recommendations contained in the 85-page February report .

Madison Police Chief Noble Wray chairs the oversight group, which
also includes Chisholm, Dane County Circuit Judge James Martin and
Jennifer Bias, deputy director of the trial division and affirmative
action officer for the Office of the Wisconsin State Public Defender.

"I believe all of us have a responsibility to see that our system is
both fair and just," Doyle said.

"Because, for Wisconsin to thrive, every citizen must have the
opportunity to succeed in our communities, our schools, and our
economy, and that requires that every person is treated fairly and
equally in our system of justice."

Doyle also directed all state agencies to track and analyze data for
racial disparities and offered to work with the Office of Justice
Assistance and law enforcement agencies to provide training that
would help recognize and eradicate racial disparities in the justice system.

And he said he would strengthen the Department of Corrections'
re-entry and support programs, ensure fairness in parole and
probation revocation, and see that discipline in the prison system is
race-neutral.