PRISON COSTS HAVE A LOCK ON BUDGET

Spending on corrections in Wisconsin rose far faster than any other major
area of state government during the 1990s, according to an analysis by the
Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance. The state also led the nation in arrest
rates, although the two may not be related.

"To quote (comic strip character) Pogo, 'We've met the enemy, and he is
us,'" Todd Berry, executive director of the nonpartisan public policy
research group, said Tuesday. "We were concerned as a state about being
safe, even though we were a pretty safe state and even though we're already
spending more on police protection than the typical state. We got tougher
laws. We got more police. And we ended up arresting and jailing more people."

Since 1992, lawmakers have presided over a 267 percent increase in state
spending on corrections - from $233 million a year to $855 million - mostly
to open and operate eight prisons. Over the same period, total spending
from the state's general fund increased 62 percent.

Critics of the state's increasingly punitive approach to crime, including
increasing sentence lengths and abolishing parole, said budget hawks might
want to consider the area ripe for reform. The report comes weeks before
the start of the next legislative session in which Republicans, who control
both houses of the Legislature, are vowing to pass some form of automatic
state spending restraint.

"It's ironic that many of the politicians who complain the loudest about
state spending are the ones who have been most responsible for one of the
biggest increases in state spending in the corrections system," said state
Rep. Spencer Black, D-Madison.

"We haven't had a well-thought-out policy on crime and corrections that not
only keeps the public secure but also keeps taxpayers without having to go
deeper into their pockets," Black said.

The sharp increase in prison spending only underscores the need for the
measure, said Rep. Frank Lasee, R-Bellevue. Lasee is the lead author in the
Assembly of a proposed state constitutional amendment to limit spending
known as the Taxpayers Bill of Rights and a member of the Assembly
Corrections and Courts Committee.

"I believe that having a cap on spending, or the growth on spending, will
force us to ... look at what we're doing, figure out what really works, do
more of it and get rid of the things that don't work," Lasee said.

If the state couldn't afford to build another prison but the public wanted
one anyway, the amendment would let the question go to a referendum, he said.

Lasee faulted Republicans and Democrats alike - including former GOP Gov.
Tommy Thompson, who oversaw the largest prison-building boom in state
history - for not insisting on a more cost-effective plan to ensure public
safety.

That could include better delineation between high-risk offenders, who must
be incarcerated, and lower-risk offenders who could benefit from some form
of treatment in the community.

"Tommy Thompson was a great super-legislator, and he was concerned with
legislating more, creating more, doing more," Lasee said. "But he was not
very concerned with how efficient and effective the government ran."

Driven by public fears about crime, lawmakers approved scores of tough laws
during the 1990s, giving police and prosecutors more grounds to prosecute
lawbreakers and judges the ability to sentence them to more time.

As a result, according to the Taxpayers Alliance report, just about
everything having to do with corrections increased:

. The prison population tripled, from 7,512 in 1992 to 21,825 last year.

. The incarceration rate doubled, from 176 per 100,000 residents to 391 in
2002. In 1993, Wisconsin's incarceration rate was 40th in the nation; two
years ago, it was 24th.

. The state led the nation in arrest rates, with police making 8,286
arrests per 100,000 residents, more than twice the arrest rate in Minnesota
(3,950) and Michigan (3,855) and significantly higher than Illinois (6,787)
and Iowa (4,219).

But because those figures include arrests for non-serious crimes, such as
disorderly conduct and vandalism, it's unclear what effect they have on the
prison population.

About the only thing that didn't increase: the crime rate. Reports of
violent crime peaked in Wisconsin in 1995 at 281 incidents per 100,000
people. In 2001, that figure had dropped to 231.

It's impossible to determine the extent to which locking more people up
contributed to that. Many of the laws were passed after the crime rate
started to drop. And reported crime dropped in nearly every other state
during that period, including many that didn't see a corresponding increase
in incarceration rates.

Research on the effectiveness of prison at preventing crime - either as a
general deterrent or because it keeps potential criminals locked up longer
- - is mixed, the Taxpayers Alliance report noted.

Likewise, any cost-benefit analysis should take into account the cost to
communities if people in prison are let out and re-offend. But researchers
disagree sharply on how to measure those costs.

The report notes that corrections spending has flattened out in the last
three years as the pace of prison building slowed. But legislation to
abolish parole and allow judges to sentence offenders to longer sentences
is widely expected to start driving up corrections costs again.