DRUG REHAB BETTER FOR ALL THAN STRAIGHT PRISON TIME

The state's alternatives to prison for drug offenders would be more
successful in keeping people out of prison if you didn't have to go to
prison to participate.Former Milwaukee Ald. Paul Henningsen cut several
months off a three-year federal prison term by successfully completing an
alcohol rehabilitation program. That's good news for the taxpayers and good
news for Paul.

Gov. Jim Doyle wants to similarly reduce Wisconsin prison costs by
expanding opportunities for inmates to cut their sentences by successfully
completing alcohol and drug treatment and job training.

Doyle's initial steps in this area are modest, even though they would
nearly double the paltry efforts at drug and alcohol treatment that now
exist within the state prison system.

The governor's budget proposal would expand treatment to an additional 400
inmates a year. The current six-month treatment program accepts 400 men and
60 women a year.

Currently, about 1,200 inmates are on a waiting list. Corrections Secretary
Matt Frank says at least 70 percent of the state's 21,800 inmates are in
need of drug or alcohol treatment.

This is one of those rare programs that appeals to both liberals and
conservatives because treatment is not only cheaper than incarceration, but
it also does a whole lot more to improve public safety and turn former
offenders into productive citizens.

Clearly, the only real enemy of expanded treatment is public ignorance.
That was perfectly illustrated by the reaction to Henningsen's successful
treatment by two journalists who should have known better.

Cary Spivak and Dan Bice write a gossipy, investigative reporting column
for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. They are good reporters, especially
skilled at researching public records to unearth information, sometimes
trivial, sometimes important, the public has a right to know.

But their attack on Henningsen's successful treatment, a good-news story,
was irresponsible journalism. They ripped the corrections system for doing
what it's supposed to do - correct behavior and improve the ability of
those incarcerated to succeed on the outside.

Not only did the columnists oppose shortening anyone's prison sentence for
completing alcohol or drug treatment, but they even objected to Henningsen
earning additional time off for good behavior.

Henningsen will have served 23 months of a 33-month sentence for misusing
election campaign funds if he is released as scheduled in September. About
half of the reduction was a result of the treatment program. "So much for
truth in sentencing," Spivak and Bice moaned.

For the record, the federal prison system is not bound by Wisconsin's truth
in sentencing law, which was passed by posturing local politicians to
pretend they were tough on crime.

The biggest untruth about truth in sentencing is the notion that a judge
can possibly know at the time of conviction the appropriate time to safely
release an offender back into the community after he has spent years in prison.

That can depend on so many factors, not the least of which is whether the
individual successfully completes drug or alcohol treatment. Unfortunately,
it's a lot easier to obtain drugs and alcohol in prison than it is to
obtain treatment.

Grasping for any reason to oppose prison treatment programs, Spivak and
Bice feigned concern over fairness to inmates who were not addicted to
drugs or alcohol because they would not have the opportunity to shorten
their sentences.

Those lucky ducks who are addicted to drugs and alcohol. They get all the
breaks. Of course, you might have difficulty convincing someone of that
after he has destroyed his life and his family and finds himself cast into
the dark dungeon of our prison system.

If intelligent professional journalists actually believe it would be better
for addicted inmates to sit in a prison cell longer without receiving any
treatment instead of getting out of prison earlier after successfully
completing treatment, what hope does the governor have of selling expanded
drug treatment to uneducated yahoos?

The meager $2.9 million Doyle wants to spend on drug and alcohol treatment
in prison may be one of the few expenditures in the $1 billion state
corrections budget that actually has a chance of accomplishing something
positive.

The bulk of the billion spent on corrections simply goes to confine human
beings in hard, mean places that return harder, meaner offenders back to
the community more dangerous than they were before.

The irony for years in Wisconsin has been that Milwaukee County actually
claims to have alternatives to prison for drug offenders. The catch is the
programs are only offered in prison.

The Felony Drug Offender Alternative to Prison currently has about 70
participants at the Milwaukee Secure Detention Facility. A similarly
misnamed program for women, Treatment Alternative to Prison, has only one
participant at the Women's Correction Center in Milwaukee.

The state's alternatives to prison for drug offenders would be more
successful in keeping people out of prison if you didn't have to go to
prison to participate. After Doyle's initial baby steps of expanding
treatment in prison, we should try the real alternative of treatment
instead of prison.