MILWAUKEE COUNTY JUDGES LEERY OF PROBATION, PANEL SAYS

Task Force Explores How To Beef Up Sentencing Option

Milwaukee County Circuit Court judges lack confidence in probation and
are less inclined to impose it on sentencing day than their colleagues
in other parts of the state, according to a task force looking at ways
to beef up probation locally.

With prison populations expected to climb under newly instituted truth
in sentencing and 40% of the inmates coming from Milwaukee County,
criminal justice system officials are examining why the Milwaukee
County judiciary is dubious of probation and mulling what to do about
it.

Some of the reasons for the skepticism were quickly
apparent.

With 370 probation-parole agents in the county, judges know few, if
any, of the people who will supervise defendants if they don't go to
prison. Agent turnover is higher in Milwaukee than elsewhere in the
state and up to 25% - 90 - of the agents here in recent years were
entry-level. About 3,500 men and women abscond from probation or
parole in Milwaukee annually. Limited money has been available for
intensive substance abuse treatment for probationers, and it is
estimated that 70% to 80% of them have drug or alcohol problems.

"My perception of it (drug treatment for probationers) is it's kind of
catch as catch can," Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Elsa C. Lamelas, a
task force member, said at a recent meeting.

The perception extends beyond the judiciary to the
prosecution.

"If you're going to have aggressive probation, you're going to have to
have alcohol and drug treatment, mandatory treatment," Milwaukee
County District Attorney E. Michael McCann told probation officials at
the same meeting. "I know you guys aren't blankly overlooking it.

"I know it's a revenue problem. But if resources are part of the
problem, that's why the judges think, 'I can't put this guy on
probation.' "

The situation is deemed so serious that a statewide committee that
spent more than a year examining the criminal code in anticipation of
truth in sentencing devoted a separate section of its report to "The
Milwaukee Probation Problem."

"In all truth-in-sentencing states that have experienced success, they
have had to beef up probation," said Eau Claire County Circuit Judge
Thomas H. Barland, who headed that committee and chairs the Governor's
Task Force to Enhance Probation. "That is the secret to keeping a lid
on the prison population.

"The design of probation and the attitude toward it needs to be
changed."

William Grosshans, administrator of the state Division of Community
Corrections, said previous committees reached similar conclusions
about the need to upgrade probation, and changes are already under
way.

"We welcome this study like we have studies in the past," Grosshans
said. "But we've done quite a bit already, and we plan to do more."

In 1998, according to data compiled by the task force, 67% of the
people convicted of felonies statewide were placed on probation. In
Milwaukee County, however, where more than 6,500 new felony cases are
issued each year, judges impose probation for 52% of the felons who
appear before them.

Milwaukee County Circuit Judge M. Joseph Donald, a task force member,
said at a meeting in November that probation in Milwaukee has come to
be regarded as a sort of limbo in which defendants are placed with the
hope that nothing bad happens.

"This not a yelling match at probation agents," McCann said in a
recent interview. "It's a recognition that there are problems unique
to Milwaukee where there are more serious offenders.

"Something has got to be done to restore confidence in probation in
Milwaukee."

In the current budget, the Legislature appropriated about $9 million
in the corrections budget for public safety in southern Wisconsin. The
money is being used to enhance probation in Racine and Dane counties.

Barland's task force is looking at the enhanced probation in those
counties as a potential model for what should be done in Milwaukee,
where 18,900 men and women are on probation or parole.

"The Dane and Racine county projects required attitudinal changes,"
Barland said. "Officers get out in the field more.

"They rely less on office calls. They work more closely with
police."

Grosshans said Milwaukee probation-parole agents have instituted those
changes already.

"We team up with police and go out into the community during
non-traditional hours to make sure clients are where they're supposed
to be," he said. "We've established an absconder unit with 20 agents
who go out with police and actively seek absconders.

"We're holding victims' forums where we invite victims of crimes to
come and tell us what their issues are. There are a number of things
we're doing differently."

While agent turnover is higher in Milwaukee than elsewhere, it's down
compared with past years, according to Grosshans.

"In 1999 we had 53 agents turn over in Milwaukee," he said.
"Thirty-four transferred out, four retired and 15 left state service
for other employment."

The division recently stepped up its efforts to recruit new agents
from the Milwaukee area, he said.

"We believe that if we hire them locally, we'll be better able to
retain them," he said.

Barland suggested that "financial inducements" might be a way of
keeping agents in Milwaukee.

"The question is how to do that without creating problems elsewhere in
the state," he added.

Barland also said it was important to instill trust in probationers if
the quality of probation is going to be improved in Milwaukee.

"One way to do that is to get more African-American agents," he said.
"I think the system would be more effective in Milwaukee if there is a
sufficiently high percentage African-American agents, so the
African-American clients don't think it's a white-dominated system."

One of the biggest keys to improving probation, according to Barland,
is to step up the quality of alcohol and drug abuse counseling, most
of which is offered only on an outpatient basis.

"It may mean locking them up for treatment for a period of time," he
said.

McCann, who also is on the task force, said that the key to getting
prosecutors to recommend probation on sentencing day and to convincing
judges to use it is to focus on one of three groups of defendants.

"There are people that you can put on probation without any
reservations and there's a group that obviously does not qualify for
probation," he said. "It's that other group, that group where you
could go either way - prison or probation - that could benefit from
enhanced probation."

While it's not clear how much an enhanced form of probation would cost
in Milwaukee, Barland's criminal penalties study committee noted in
its report that imprisoning a felon costs $20,000 annually while "an
alternative to prison other than traditional probation" could cost
$8,800, "or even less, depending upon the level of
supervision."

Barland said the task force is scheduled to send Gov. Tommy G.
Thompson a report on what to do about probation in Milwaukee in March.
He's confident that some changes will spring from it.

"I think there is a growing recognition that we need to spend more
money in this area," Barland said. "I have heard more conservatives in
the Legislature acknowledge that.

"I think there is general support for an increased appropriation. The
question is, will it be enough?"