COMMITTEE DEBATES SENTENCES FOR SMALL-TIME DRUG DEALERS

MADISON, Wis. (AP) -- The state's corrections chief said Friday a committee
should consider sending small-time drug dealers to rehabilitation and
training programs instead of prison.

"If you're going to spend $20,000 a year to give someone a brief time out,
might not it be worthwhile to look at an expenditure of $20,000" for
programs that give them education and vocational training, said Department
of Corrections secretary Michael Sullivan, who is leaving the post in
January.

Many people convicted of selling small amounts of drugs are sentenced to two
to four years in prison, but that time could be better spent giving such
convicts a chance to get an education and learn job skills, Sullivan told
the 18-member Criminal Penalties Study Committee.

The committee is examining ways to make the state's sentencing guidelines
tougher under legislation Gov. Tommy Thompson signed in June.

The law, which goes into effect Dec. 31, 1999, eliminates parole and
lengthens prison terms for some felonies. It also requires that convicts
serve out their full prison terms.

The committee has until April 1999 to recommend changes to the state
Legislature.

State prison officials are dealing with overcrowded prisons, and the state
has contracted with public and private out-of-state facilities to house some
Wisconsin inmates.

Asked if sending drug traffickers to rehabilitation instead of jail was a
way to reduce over crowding, Sullivan said only that the committee should
study alternatives to incarcerating such convicts.

He said, however, that "sending people to prison doesn't necessarily
eliminate the drugs."

Milwaukee county aggressively prosecutes drug dealers, yet it still has a
drug problem, he said.

Milwaukee County accounts for half of all drug traffickers, according to a
corrections department study comparing dealers statewide who were sentenced
for the first time.

Milwaukee County prosecutor Pat Kenney defended keeping dealers in prison.

"It's been argued that incarceration of small-time dealers is too
expensive," Kenney said. "Our office rejects that approach."

In one neighborhood where homes are riddled with bullet holes from
drug-related gun fights, Kenney knows of an elderly Milwaukee woman who
sleeps in her living room because her bedroom is next to an alley where drug
transactions take place.

The district attorney's office prosecutes many dealers who usually carry
minimal amounts of drugs, such as $25 worth of heroin, he said.

Just because drug sellers have small amounts of drugs on them does not mean
they are small-time dealers, Kenney said.

They carry small amounts of drugs and money in case they are robbed, he
said.

>From November 1996 to October 1998, a total of 449 drug traffickers
statewide sentenced for the first time received terms of three years or less
in prison. The majority, or 332, were from Milwaukee, department statistics
showed.

But incarcerating such dealers for short prison terms is not effective,
Madison defense attorney Steve Hurley said.

"What we've done is replaced the faces, replaced the street corner," he
said. "We haven't solved the problem."

About 75 percent of drug dealers are designated as needing drug or alcohol
treatment, he said. About 60 percent receive such services in prison.

The prison system cannot accommodate the number of convicts who need such
treatments, Sullivan said.

Communities should offer programs that would provide dealers educational,
and vocational training and jobs so "they are not returning to that
lifestyle" of drug trafficking, Sullivan said. Communities could form
advisory boards that would monitor released drug dealers and make sure they
are going to work, he said.

"It's a community problem, not a Department of Corrections problem," he
said.

Checked-by: Don Beck