STUDY OUTLINES ALTERNATIVES TO JAIL

State Urged to Boost Drug-Treatment Funding for Non-Violent
Offenders

Wisconsin's lawmakers are willing to consider new approaches to
handling non-violent drug offenders, but absent a major investment in
treatment services, the state will continue to face mounting costs and
pressures on its prison population, a new study has found.

If treatment services were extended to cover half of the more than
5,000 felons sentenced to probation each year for low-level drug,
property and drunken-driving offenses, the annual savings to the state
could reach $22 million in the first years of a program offering
alternatives to incarceration, the study says.

And down the road, the eventual savings could grow to $43 million
annually while reducing the prison population by 1,500 in Wisconsin.

Much of that, however, depends on whether the state invests in its
treatment and wraparound service for drug offenders, says the study
commissioned for lawmakers and judges by the Washington, D.C.-based
Drug Policy Alliance, an advocacy group for sentencing reform.

The study was conducted by Justice Strategies, an organization founded
by criminal justice policy analysts Judith Greene and Kevin Pranis,
who spent a year interviewing judges, corrections officials,
prosecutors and others on the state's drug problem. They also analyzed
data from the state Department of Corrections.

The focus groups for the study were created at the request of state
Sen. Carol Roessler (R-Oshkosh), who with Rep. Garey Bies (R-Sister
Bay), proposed a measure adopted by the Legislature last year that
established a grant program to enable counties and regional groups to
expand treatment-based alternatives to incarceration.

But the report makes note of the fact that lawmakers declined to put
any general fund revenue in the grant pot, relying instead on
surcharges imposed on people convicted of drug and property offenses
to fund the program.

To make the grant program successful, the report recommends Wisconsin
lawmakers increase the funding by $22 million annually to make quality
treatment available to 3,000 people convicted of non-violent offenses
each year, including more than 1,100 who otherwise would be sent to
prison.

The state's prison population has grown fivefold in the span of a
single generation, the study says. In recent years, the trend has been
driven by the number of people incarcerated for non-violent offenses,
which over the last five years has outpaced the rise in the number of
inmates serving time for violent or sex offenses.

The study found that Wisconsin's prisons hold roughly 2,900 prisoners
serving time for low-level, non-violent offenses. At an annual cost of
$28,622 per prisoner, they consume $83 million a year in correctional
resources. For an estimated $6,100 per person, the state could provide
quality substance abuse treatment as an economical alternative to
incarceration, the study found.

The study's findings come as no surprise to Milwaukee County Circuit
Judge Charles Kahn, who was among the judges surveyed in focus groups
throughout the state in 2005 by the authors.

Kahn said many of the cases coming before judges in Milwaukee are
driven by drug addiction. But while he applauds Gov. Jim Doyle and
Corrections Secretary Matthew Frank for moving forward with sensible
programs to reform the corrections system, he wonders whether the
Legislature has the will to change it.

"Whether the Legislature or county governments will go along and make
responsible budgetary decisions, I don't know," Kahn said.

Among the study's recommendations is a call for the establishment of a
problem-solving court that targets prison-bound individuals with
severe addiction problems and expansion of local alternatives to
incarceration using a mix of state grants, community corrections
subsidies and state purchase of local services for probation and parole.