POURING BILLIONS INTO BOTTOMLESS DUNGEONS

One of the biggest political myths around is that voters in these fiscally
conservative times will not tolerate wasteful spending on huge government
programs that don't work.

On the contrary, whenever politicians want to spend more money to lock up
human beings, too much is not enough. All a candidate has to do to "go
negative" on the issue is accuse his opponent of voting against excessive
government spending on prisons.

The state Department of Corrections has just proudly announced a 50%
increase in the number of prisoners it expects to put behind bars over the
next three years.

In a clear demonstration of our priorities, the projected 22.5% budget
increase for prisons is more than double the budget increase proposed for
the other statewide effort to get people's minds right--the University of
Wisconsin System.

There are two other things you should know about a government spending
increase of such enormous magnitude:

1. This is not taking place against a backdrop of burgeoning crime. Crime in
Wisconsin is in decline, just as it has been around the nation. The state
crime rate dropped 10% over the last decade.

2. That mind-boggling 50% increase in the number of people to be
incarcerated is grossly underestimated. The Department of Corrections admits
its figures do not include a single additional prisoner as a result of the
so-called "truth in sentencing" law.

There never has been a more dishonestly named law. Gov. Tommy Thompson and
the Department of Corrections adamantly refuse to tell the truth about
"truth in sentencing." If the law isn't going to keep a whole lot more
people in prison longer, what was the point?

The biggest "lies in sentencing" are being told right now by the governor
and corrections officials. They keep saying there is no way of knowing how
many additional prison cells, if any, will be needed under "truth in
sentencing."

Well, let's try to help them out with the math. Under the previous law, a
prisoner was eligible for mandatory release after he or she had served
two-thirds of the sentence. Now, all prisoners will serve 100% of their
sentences. The difference between two-thirds and 100% is one-third.

So, let's see. We're going to have 50% more prisoners in the system and
they'll be serving sentences that are 33% longer. Multiply the whole thing
by pi or something, and we'll need to spend hundreds of billions of dollars
to build new prisons from here to kingdom come. Give or take a couple dozen
Supermaxes.

The response from "lock 'em up" politicians in both parties is that the
public doesn't care how much it costs. Law-abiding citizens are willing to
pay whatever it costs to lock up those monstrous, subhuman,
senior-citizen-raping, blood-feasting animals who are lurking in the shadows
ready to pounce on innocent voters on their way to the polls.

Since there are nowhere near 25,000 such murderous fiends in Wisconsin,
politicians have to keep cranking up the inflamed rhetoric to keep the voter
support for building new prisons at an all-time high.

If citizens are willing to pay any price for more prisons, why are
politicians so reluctant to say right out loud how absurdly expensive the
price will be? In order to keep expanding prisons at the present rate, all
politicians have to do is raise taxes for corrections 50% every three years.
Also, when "truth in sentencing" kicks in, they may have to discontinue a
few of the less important government services such as education, public
health, parks and highways.

We have seen the future of corrections in Wisconsin and it is a geriatric
prison in Chippewa Falls. When most people think about crime in the
simple-minded stereotypes politicians encourage, they probably picture
scary, soulless teenagers or professional thugs in their 20s. But when you
lock up people and throw away the key, time does not stand still.

So now we are actually talking about spending millions of dollars to operate
a geriatric prison to protect us all from sickly and aged offenders. We
wouldn't want those vicious old codgers shuffling out the revolving door of
some prison after 60 or 70 years to resume their lawless ways. Of course,
the biggest danger at that point might be that they would bore us all to
death with stories about how much better crime used to be in the old days.

It's easy to understand the temptation to keep offenders locked up until
they become frail old geezers pushing their walkers and croaking, "Hand over
your pocket book, by cracky!" That's because those who come out of prison
earlier are almost certain to be more dangerous than when they went in.

Prisons no longer make any pretense of attempting rehabilitation. Many, many
offenders have drug and alcohol problems. One thing that's very hard to get
in prison is drug treatment. What's easy to get is drugs.

No only do prisons do very little to change those in their custody for the
better. The current political philosophy is to make prisons into even more
destructive institutions. Politicians are systematically removing all
positive amenities from prisons that recognize inmates as human beings. As
prisons become colder, harder and meaner, so do their human byproducts.

Combined with conservative political efforts to deny legitimate employment
to anyone convicted of a crime, a very strong argument can be made that our
prison system increases crime and reduces public safety in Wisconsin.

But at least it is a huge government program that is exorbitantly expensive.

Checked-by: Don Beck