PRISON POLICY IS BOTH COSTLY AND IRRATIONAL

When he ran for governor last year, Ed Garvey complained that Gov.
Tommy Thompson's vision for Wisconsin's future was one of "big
highways connecting big prisons.''

What neither Garvey nor anyone else knew at the time was that the most
expensive "highway'' was the one being used to ship Wisconsin
prisoners -- and tax dollars -- out of state.

The state Department of Corrections has requested an additional $120
million over the next two years to cover the skyrocketing costs of
transferring prisoners to prisons in states such as Tennessee. At a
time when state officials say they do not have the money to keep
tuition at the University of Wisconsin affordable, to provide adequate
consumer protection services or to develop mass transportation
systems, there is enough money to send a steady stream of Wisconsin
tax dollars to southern states and private prison corporations.

Why does Wisconsin need to ship thousands of prisoners out of state at
the same time as the Department of Corrections is spending $228
million to open four new prisons over the next two years?

It's not because the crime rate is rising. Since the current economic
upturn began in the early 1990s, crime in Wisconsin has declined.

It's not because Wisconsinites want prisoners sent out of state. Every
indication is that the vast majority of Wisconsinites share the view
of state Senate President Fred Risser, D-Madison, who says, "We're in
effect sending this (corrections) money out state. We talk about
bringing industry to Wisconsin. Well, prisons are a big industry. That
money would much better be used in state.''

And it's not because every space in Wisconsin's prison system is
filled -- in fact, quite the opposite. The DOC is actually closing
down entire units that have been used for housing at existing prisons;
since the start of the year, the Oakhill and Columbia correctional
institutions have closed whole sections of their facilities.

"It certainly isn't good public policy, nor does it make good sense,''
says Risser of the the idea of pouring hundreds of millions of
taxpayer dollars into building and maintaining under-utilized prisons
in Wisconsin while spending hundreds of millions more to house
prisoners in other states.

Risser has asked the DOC to review its policies. If an honest review
is conducted, there can be only one logical conclusion: The transfers
should stop.

The practice of sending convicts to other states is, by any measure, a
bad one. Religious leaders, psychiatrists, social workers and
academics agree that separating prisoners from links to their families
and communities is a bad move -- it makes the rehabilitation process
more difficult and virtually ensures that the return to their
hometowns will be more turbulent.

The practice is also far more costly than keeping prisoners in state.
While the department claims that it costs an average of $15 less per
day to house Wisconsin prisoners out of state, the reverse is actually
true. According to guards in Wisconsin prisons, only the best (read:
least expensive to manage) prisoners are shipped out of state. This
creates a circumstance where, according to Rick Gondert, president of
the guards union at the Racine Correctional Institution, Wisconsin
prisons become more violent, more difficult to manage and, yes, more
expensive.

The only explanation for current corrections policy is that the agency
has had access to too much money for too long. With an annual budget
of almost $800 million -- which is expected to surpass $1 billion
early in the coming century -- the DOC has simply forgotten how to
budget responsibly: It spends money to build new prisons, while
spending money to shutter functional sections of existing prisons,
while spending money to transfer prisoners to other states.

The department is spending, spending, spending. And it will keep doing
so until legislators impose fiscal restraint -- not to mention common
sense.