SPIRALING PRISON COSTS WILL SWAMP STATE, LAWYER WARNS

Ever-rising prison costs will eventually swamp other state spending -
including the University of Wisconsin's budget - unless prosecutors
and judges are forced to consider the cost of their sentencing
decisions, warns veteran criminal defense attorney Steve Hurley.

Hurley told the Dane County Bar Association on Tuesday that crime has
declined steadily both nationwide and in Wisconsin over the past 17
years.

But during that same period, prison populations have risen steadily
and the United States now has the largest prison population of any
nation in the world.

And although they remain a minority in society, blacks make up a
majority of the nation's prison population, with Wisconsin having the
highest incarceration rate among African-Americans of any state.

Hurley argued that a generation of lawmakers, prosecutors, and judges
have endorsed tougher penalties without considering the financial
consequences.

"There's a peculiar rule in the Legislature that no bill may be
brought up without a cost estimate except for criminal laws," he said.
"We have been passing bills with no notion what the cost to the
taxpayers will be."

The most extreme case, Hurley said, was the 1999 "truth in sentencing"
law that eliminated parole and early release and required inmates to
serve their full sentences behind bars.

Hurley, who served on an advisory panel to implement the law, said
truth in sentencing was supposed to make it easier for everyone in the
criminal justice system to know how long an offender would remain
behind bars.

But at the last minute, lawmakers doubled the penalties for most
crimes and now judges often impose the maximum sentence in order to
make themselves look tough on crime to voters.

The longer sentences has translated into higher prison costs, he said.
In 1999, it cost an average of $20,000 a year to keep an inmate in
prison, but in just six years, that figure rose to $25,000.

Burned-out boomers: Hurley disputed the notion that the streets are
safer because more criminals are in prison.

"Absolutely not," he said. "There is no credible study that shows any
such cause and effect."

Instead, he said, the crime rate has been driven by
demographics.

Younger people - especially young men between 17 and 30 - tend to
commit the most crimes, and once they age the crime rate declines.

"The biggest crime wave ever was for the baby boomers," he said,
noting that 17 years ago, "the boomers hit their 40s and they stopped
committing crimes."

During that same period, however, lawmakers started increasing
penalties for drug offenses and now drug offenders are clogging the
prison system.

"One-third of all inmates have no history of violence," he said,
adding that even more are considered violent only because they have
some minor violent offense in their past.

Hurley said Wisconsin could lower its prison population system by
adopting a funding system for adult offenders similar to what it
already has for juveniles.

Counties currently get a pot of money, known as youth aids, that they
can spend either on programs for juveniles or to send them to state
institutions. But typically, the money doesn't cover the full cost of
sending a juvenile to a state facility, which means the difference has
to be made up with property taxes.

That gap creates an incentive for judges, prosecutors, and other
county officials to find cheaper solutions, Hurley said, adding that
Minnesota has a similar system in place for adult offenders.

As a result, he said, Minnesota has a much lower incarceration rate
and much lower spending on prisons, even as it has a crime rate
roughly comparable to Wisconsin's.

Hurley noted that the state spends more on prisons than it does on the
UW System.

While Gov. Jim Doyle has sought to slow the growth of spending on
prisons, Hurley argued that the issue is really not under the
governor's control.

"It's time that judges change. It's time they face the facts, because
in giving out these sentences, they are costing you our children's
futures. And they won't change until you, as voters, demand that they
change," he said.