PRISON REFORM MUST HAVE CREDIBILITY TO BE A SUCCESS

Let's make sure that at the end of the legislative session this week we
don' t forget a powerful bill to create local treatment programs for people
convicted of non-violent crimes.

Dubbed the Substance Abuse Offenders Accountability and Public Safety Act,
this bill is one of a series of recent prison reform efforts. It recognizes
our state has become too dependent on jail or prison terms to cure people
of social ills.

State Sen. Carol Roessler, R-Oshkosh, introduced the Act and deserves
credit for that. Her lifetime track record in social health issues gives
her a higher degree of influence than other legislators.

She will want to make sure that this innovative legislation doesn't have
the pitfalls of previous social reform legislation.

The W-2 "Wisconsin Works" welfare-to-work program, one that she authored,
required a bustling economy for people to leave welfare. Changes are still
being made to get the program to work in a recession and to stay
accountable for tracking all welfare recipients.

Failures of the school voucher program in Milwaukee let precious hundreds
of thousands of tax dollars get squandered. The lesson from that fiasco was
to demand accountability for services rendered.

Wisconsin must learn from these lessons if its prison reform ideas are
going to work correctly.