RENEW FOCUS ON REHABILITATION

Prison is a consequence for criminals but not a solution to crime. Yet
Wisconsin justice policy focuses too narrowly on protecting the public by
locking up lawbreakers. This must change.

Lasting solutions to cut crime and keep communities safe are far more
complex. Wisconsin could, for example, try harder to rehabilitate prisoners
and treat the underlying addictions that often fuel crime sprees. We could
keep closer tabs on ex-criminals in the community. We could establish new
and more effective ways of handling offenders instead of simply see-sawing
them between probation and prison.

All too often, we just throw the book at 'em. Throughout the 1990s,
lawmakers added penalties and eliminated parole, made it easier to punish
juveniles as adults, and pulled prisoners out of therapy to put them on
chain gangs.

Policymakers' focus on criminal punishment instead of crime prevention has
tripled the incarceration rate, the percentage of people in prison compared
to the overall population. Of every 100,000 residents, 382 are in the state
lockup. And we spend about $852 million a year more than 7 percent of all
the tax money available for state schools, health programs, highways and
much more to keep about 22,000 people behind bars and track about 68,000
others who have been released from prison.

Every person in Wisconsin pays $150 a year for this false security. As
reporter Phil Brinkman has reported in the week-long Wisconsin State Journal
series "Conning Ourselves," what we really get for our money is a punitive
approach that:

. Costs more than just about any other solution, yet whose effectiveness is
open to debate.

. Starves efforts to prevent or reduce crime, many of which could be
accomplished at a fraction of the cost.

. Fails to tap into communities and organizations that can act as society's
informal safeguards against crime.

. Closes its eyes to research and experience that recommends a more balanced
approach to combating crime.

Wisconsin rounds up and imprisons thousands of lawbreakers every year,
outpacing states with higher crime rates in our relentless zeal to scour the
streets of scofflaws. The punishments may fit the crime. But does the
dragnet keep communities safe? We don't want to know.

Despite the enormous cost of state prisons, lawmakers are loath to find out
whether their politically popular punishments actually work. Taxpayers
should demand that state prisons at least be held as accountable as any
other state agency. As a start, the Legislature should audit the
correctional system's spending and effectiveness.

One fact is already clear: Prisons do a poor job of deterring offenders from
committing new crimes. In fact, they may churn out a class of even more
determined criminals. National studies suggest two in three ex-prisoners are
arrested again within three years. Nearly half of Wisconsin prisoners have
been in the joint before. This means punishment alone doesn't set criminals
straight.

Lawmakers need to reform and refine their approach to criminal justice.
Crime has gone down while the prison population has gone up. But the
connection is far from ironclad. In Wisconsin and elsewhere, crime rates
started falling before celebrated anti-crime policies took effect. Wisconsin
officials abolished parole at the end of 1999, eight years after crime rates
began a steep decline.

And "get-tough" approaches yield unintended consequences that may undermine
their limited positive impact. "Truth in sentencing" policy, for example,
was meant to give victims and community residents the satisfaction of
knowing that prisoners would have to serve out the sentence imposed by a
judge. But at the same time it took away a key incentive for inmates to
reform their ways: the possibility of early parole for improved attitude and
behavior.

And along the way, lawmakers passed bills ratcheting up criminal penalties
without any information on their future costs. In fact, from 1983 to 1999,
the Legislature specifically exempted crime bills from usual cost reviews, a
curious and ultimately expensive dodge. Despite recurring state budget
deficits, things haven't changed much in the legislative chambers: A
committee established in 2002 to evaluate the cost of crime bills has never
met and may be abolished this session. That shouldn't happen, and lawmakers
must also broaden their policy agenda beyond their penchant for punishment.

But while locking up more people is no solution, neither is letting more of
them out. Some politicians promote the misconception that state prisons are
full of non-violent drug offenders who never should have been imprisoned. In
fact, most people doing time have been convicted of multiple crimes, often
violent, as well as property and drug crimes.

Policymakers and the Doyle administration instead must renew the prison
system's focus on rehabilitation. The state has expanded drug and alcohol
treatment programs in prison, uses work-release programs for
minimum-security inmates, and plans to more effectively sanction
ex-offenders who violate parole terms.

Those measures are a good start. But policymakers, corrections officials,
community leaders, employers and others all have a bigger role to play in
dealing with the nine out of 10 convicts who get out of prison sooner or
later. In fact, what happens to those offenders after their release may be
the real key to ensuring community safety without bankrupting taxpayers.