TOUGHER SENTENCING LAW CARRIES HEFTY PRICE

A state law that gives criminals virtually no chance for early release
will cost Wisconsin taxpayers an estimated $1.8 billion for inmates
admitted through 2025 if current trends continue, a Journal Sentinel
analysis of prison and court records has found.

The prison system is on track to rival the state university system in
annual tax dollars as the cost of longer prison terms and extended
supervision in the community steamrolls through the years. A dozen
years ago, Wisconsin taxpayers invested three times as much money in
universities as in prisons.

Wisconsin implemented one of the nation's toughest truth-in-sentencing
laws four years ago without ever assessing the cost. Today, thousands
of inmates are on waiting lists for prison jobs, education and
treatment programs. Wardens report more bad conduct and hopelessness
among offenders.

When they are released, inmates report to parole officers with average
caseloads of about 60 who have little to offer in direct aid other
than free bus tickets, hygiene kits and referrals to agencies with
more long waiting lists.

When truth in sentencing sailed through the Legislature in 1998,
Wisconsin's crime rate had fallen 14.3% over the preceding five years.
From 1998 to 2003, that trend continued, with a decline of 12.4%.

Supporters hailed the law as a more honest system that would put
judges - not the parole board - in charge of how much time offenders
would spend in prison and then under extended supervision, formerly
known as parole. Crime victims would know exactly how long the
criminal would be behind bars.

Critics warned it would be a budget disaster for taxpayers and would
not make communities safer without additional prison treatment and
community supervision dollars. No additional money was appropriated by
the Legislature for the new law.

For crimes that occur on or after Dec. 31, 1999, the law requires
offenders to serve every day of their sentences. It eliminates time
off for good behavior and adds prison time for bad behavior. Judges
must tack on a term of extended supervision equal to at least 25% of
the prison time.

The Legislature also eliminated the parole board's role for
truth-in-sentencing cases. For earlier crimes, the board can release
inmates it believes have been rehabilitated after serving at least 25%
of their sentences, and inmates must be released after serving
two-thirds of their terms.

'People do stupid things'

Harold Hudson, 22, is among the thousands of inmates sentenced under
the new law. A 10th-grade dropout, he is serving a 10-year prison term
for an armed robbery that he committed when he was 18. His only prior
record was a juvenile arrest for possession of marijuana.

Armed with a miniature baseball bat, Hudson and an accomplice who
carried a broken, unloaded pistol robbed a terrified clerk at a
Milwaukee Walgreens store and fled with about $850. The men had been
smoking marijuana and drinking alcohol and decided to do the robbery
because they were broke and unemployed, records show.

Under the old parole system, Hudson could have been considered for
release after serving 21/2 years and would have to have been paroled
after serving six years and eight months.

Under the new system, judges sentence offenders to a set amount of
time in prison plus additional time on extended supervision. When
Hudson is released, he will be supervised for five years. He can be
sent back to prison for that entire amount of time if he violates the
rules at any point during his supervision. Time served in the
community does not count.

"I was young and just made a mistake," Hudson said. "I'm not saying I
didn't deserve prison. I did. But I got a bigger sentence than what I
need to be rehabilitated. People do stupid things when they are young,
and they learn from them."

Projecting the costs

To assess the impact of truth in sentencing, the Journal Sentinel
interviewed more than 100 people over six months, including judges,
victims, parole agents, offenders, politicians, defense attorneys,
prosecutors, community advocates and corrections officials.

In addition, the newspaper reviewed hundreds of court records and
analyzed a database of 123,087 inmate records kept by the state
Department of Corrections. That database was used in creating a
mathematical model to analyze trends and estimate the added cost of
more prison and extended supervision over time.

The law will cost taxpayers an estimated $398 million extra just for
the inmates who have entered the system in the first 41/2 years under
truth in sentencing, as the time they would have been released under
the old system comes and goes.

The annual cost will exceed $50 million by 2010, the estimates show,
and the cumulative cost will approach $576 million in 2014 as more
inmates enter the system.

The projections are conservative, in that inflation was not factored
in, nor was the cost of offenders ending up in prison again for
violating conditions of extended supervision. They also assume that
current crime and sentencing patterns will continue.

Sentences got longer

Without the parole board involved, truth in sentencing places ultimate
responsibility on judges to determine how long an offender will be in
prison and on supervision. Judges were encouraged in training sessions
to hone down prison terms and to consider that every day would have to
be served behind bars.

However, the newspaper's analysis shows that both prison and extended
supervision time significantly increased, and that offenders are
serving more time locked up than under the parole system.

"One of the misconceptions at the time, and I think still is, is that
I and other proponents wanted longer sentences," said Milwaukee County
Executive Scott Walker, who at the time was one of the legislative
sponsors of truth in sentencing.

"In some cases, like with sex offenders, that was something I was
interested in," Walker said recently. "But overall the primary purpose
was to just have the certainty of knowing exactly how long someone was
going to be in prison."

The cost of the bill was not estimated at the time because there was
"no way of calculating what the judicial response would be," Walker
said.

Longer supervision terms

While the law requires judges to give an extended supervision time
equal to at least 25% of the prison sentence, records show that judges
statewide are tacking on much more - sometimes double the prison time.

"How many of them are going to make 10 years of community supervision
without bouncing in and out of prison, given the generally poor
supervision environment?" asked Walter Dickey, a University of
Wisconsin Law School professor who served as the state corrections
secretary from 1983 to 1987.

Anthony Washington, a high school dropout with no job skills, is
typical of offenders who keep revolving through the criminal justice
system. He was sentenced in April 2003 to eight years in prison for
burglary and as a habitual criminal and to seven years on extended
supervision. There were no violent crimes on his record.

Washington, 39, who has been in prison in the past, told a judge that
he was able to stay crime-free for about two years. Then he lost one
job after another when employers found he was a convicted felon. He
turned to panhandling, drug use and then finally to the burglary,
which yielded him $40 in cash.

"I have very little means of survival," Washington said at his
sentencing. "I don't even have a change of underwear . . . I keep
getting sent back (to prison) . . . I know what not to do, but what to
do?"

'They feel there is no hope'

Wardens and other prison employees cite an increase in bad-conduct
reports under truth in sentencing, more psychological problems and a
pervasive sense of hopelessness among inmates who can do nothing to
earn their way out of prison early.

The newspaper's analysis shows that as a group, inmates sentenced
between 2000 and 2002 under truth in sentencing had 34% to 59% more
major bad-conduct reports, compared with inmates admitted under the
old parole system.

"I truly believe they feel there is no hope," said Kim Schauer, an
officer at the Green Bay Correctional Institution and a 10-year
veteran. "It doesn't matter if you are a good or decent inmate or if
you are a troubled inmate. There is no more good time. They can't get
out early."

Alternative programs

With budget pressure mounting, less-expensive programs that provide
rehabilitation and early release for non-violent offenders have grown
rapidly, from 106 to 362 beds since truth in sentencing began. Those
who qualify for these six-month drug and rehab programs - which
include boot camps for male and female offenders - can theoretically
get out in a year or less. A judge must find them eligible at
sentencing and can specify when they can be enrolled.

About 276 inmates are on the waiting list for openings. Some will be
released before they get to the top of the list.

"We implement truth in sentencing, and the light goes on and we
realize what a disaster it is," said Dickey, the former corrections
secretary. "But instead of confronting what a disaster it is, what we
do is we slide open the back door quietly, trying to have a safety
valve. It's obviously an improvement but signifies our unwillingness
to take this on more squarely."

Parole agents strained

For parole agents, who also function as probation agents, growing
caseloads and increasingly limited resources have made their jobs even
more difficult. Over the past six months, as reporters spent time with
some of them, their desks were stacked high with paperwork, and they
had little to offer in terms of direct services. Most of their clients
were high school dropouts with few job skills, no money and often no
place to live.

One offender had been referred for mental health services in August
but by the end of October still had not reached the top of the list.
Another who had been living in cramped quarters with relatives was on
the list for housing help for several months before making it to the
top.

By that time, he had been arrested on a new charge and was headed back
to prison.

Even bus tickets are at a premium. Agents sometimes receive just
enough for one per month for each of their 60 clients.

"I tell my offenders to make them last," agent Julie Nicholson said.
"Use transfers. Get rides from friends."

The get-tough '90s

Wisconsin was one of about 40 states that passed versions of truth in
sentencing in the 1990s, according to the federal Bureau of Justice
Statistics. The movement was due, in part, to the federal government
providing more federal funds to build prisons for states that kept
violent prisoners locked up for 85% of their sentences and a "get
tough on crime" mentality that swept the country, authorities said.

Wisconsin got even tougher, according to Don Stemen, senior program
analyst from the Vera Institute of Justice in New York. The
non-profit, non-partisan group works with governments on criminal
justice reforms and has surveyed states on the impact of harsher
prison terms.

Stemen said Wisconsin appears to be the only state in the nation with
this combination of factors for truth in sentencing:

* Requiring both violent offenders and non-violent property and drug
offenders to serve 100% of their prison time.

* Eliminating any role for its parole board.

* Having no mechanism to force judges to sentence within specific
ranges.

No more 'safety valve'

"Frankly I thought the parole system was working very well at the
time," said Thomas Barland, who was an Eau Claire County circuit judge
when he led a legislatively mandated committee to work on ways to
implement the law.

"However, I recognized that the public was cynical regarding
sentencing, because when someone was sentenced to 10 years, he or she
might serve as little as a quarter of that time," said Barland, who is
now retired and works as a reserve judge. "The downside to truth in
sentencing is that it produces a rigidity in prison time served,
because the parole board formerly acted as a safety valve when prison
population became too great or an individual prisoner showed
rehabilitative promise."

In the years before truth in sentencing took effect, parole grants
were steadily declining, parole board records show. In 1995, the board
granted parole to 4,046 inmates. By 1999, that number had dwindled to
1,231.

Only a handful of lawmakers voted against truth in sentencing when it
became law in 1998, with the support of then-Gov. Tommy G. Thompson
and then-Attorney General Jim Doyle.

"I believe very strongly in truth in sentencing," said Doyle, who is
now governor, this month. "The victim knows how many years the person
is going to get. The defendant knows what the requirements are going
to be - how many years he or she will be incarcerated followed by what
period of supervision. Truth in sentencing is a lot better than
un-truth in sentencing."

State Sen. Fred Risser (D-Madison) is one of the few legislators still
in office who voted against the measure.

"It was the mentality of lock 'em up and throw away the key," Risser
said. "They didn't use any logic; it was just emotion. The
counter-argument was, how do you put a fiscal note on the amount of
crime you can avoid if you put these people in prison."

Ready or not

Because of worries that the new law could be a financial disaster
without changes in the criminal code, implementation was delayed until
Dec. 31, 1999, and a Criminal Penalties Study Committee was appointed
to make recommendations on changes needed before truth in sentencing
would take effect. Barland, who was chairman of the committee, said
the idea was to set the maximum prison term for a particular crime at
roughly equal to the maximum time that inmates would have served
behind bars under the old parole system.

The committee's report was presented to the Legislature in August
1999. Besides beefed-up extended supervision, the committee
recommended lower maximum prison time for most major felonies,
eliminating minimum penalties for most felonies so judges could opt
for probation, providing judges with guidelines to help them reduce
their prison sentences and creating a sentencing commission to help
monitor the law's implementation.

But political gridlock kept the recommendations from becoming law for
more than three years. As a result, on Dec. 31, 1999, truth in
sentencing went into effect with even higher maximum sentences than
had been in place before.

Why? Because when the law was originally passed in 1998, the
Legislature had voted to increase the maximum penalties for most
felonies by 50%, to accommodate the new reality that an offender's
"sentence" would include both prison time and extended supervision
afterward.

"The judges got mixed signals from the legislators and the
politicians," said Victor Manian, a reserve judge who retired as chief
judge in Milwaukee County earlier this year. "On the one hand they
were screaming, 'We've got to get tough with criminals, and judges
better give them sentences that are appropriate to the crime, and they
are going to have to serve every day of it.' And then on the back side
they were saying, 'What are you guys doing? You're filling up the
prisons, and we can't keep up with it.' "

Caught in gridlock

Offenders such as Alexander Grubor, 52, a married father of three,
faced significantly more time in prison and on community supervision
than they would have if the Barland report had been implemented, the
newspaper's analysis shows.

Grubor was among an estimated 8,200 offenders who would be sentenced
under the harsher penalties. The Barland report, with its reduced
sentences, was finally implemented for crimes occurring on or after
Feb. 1, 2003.

Grubor, who is from New Berlin and had no previous criminal record,
served three years in prison and 18 months of supervision for
possession with intent to deliver after police found about 4 ounces of
marijuana in his basement. If the Barland report had been implemented
at the time of his offense, Grubor's maximum prison time would have
been 18 months.

The marijuana was found during a police search. Grubor maintained it
was for his personal use. Police said Grubor told them he was selling
marijuana to make extra money, a statement Grubor adamantly denies
making. A jury found him guilty.

Grubor had to serve his entire prison term despite prison records that
describe him as a model inmate who "is very reliable and performs with
minimal supervision, can be counted upon when needed."

"My family was devastated," Grubor said recently. "I've never been in
jail, and I've never been in any trouble. I was never a threat to the
community.

"We do need laws, and we do need prisons. But prisons in my opinion
are for violent offenders."