STATE RANKS HIGHEST IN INCARCERATION RATE OF AFRICAN-AMERICANS

Wisconsin led the nation in the rate of incarceration for black offenders,
according to a federal report released Wednesday.

The U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics report also found that the
incarceration rate for blacks in Wisconsin is more than 10 times what is it
for whites.

Wisconsin paced the 50 states with 4,058 black prison and jail inmates per
100,000 black residents as of mid-2001, the report says. Iowa was second,
with 3,302 for every 100,000 black residents, and in Texas there were 3,287
black inmates for every 100,000 black residents.

Nationally, the study found that black incarceration rates were six times
higher than those for whites. In Wisconsin, the incarceration rate for
whites is 350 per 100,000 white residents, and for Hispanics it is 974 per
100,000.

Wisconsin has typically ranked in the upper tier of states in incarceration
rate of blacks, said Pam Oliver, a sociology professor at the University of
Wisconsin-Madison who has studied racial disparities in sentencing and
imprisonment.

During the 1990s, Oliver said, the number of sentences for violent crimes
among the black population declined, while probation and parole revocations
and drug offenses rose.

"What's driving new prison sentences for African-Americans in this state
are drug offenses," she said. "You're seeing declining serious crimes:
robbery, burglary and violent crimes. New sentences for drugs continue to
climb."

A long-range impact

Oliver said arrests for drug crimes tend to come in areas that are already
plagued by high crime and can lead to the erosion of black communities and
families.

"What drives drug arrests are decisions about where to police," she said.
"The decision to police certain areas intensively arises because the drug
trade is associated with violence and other crime in those areas, and there
is a call by the community to police those areas."

She added: "It has an enormous impact on women and children. You can't lock
up that high a percentage of the young black male population without
devastating black communities."

Wisconsin's overall incarceration rate is 605 for every 100,000 residents,
well below the 1,013 for Louisiana, which leads the nation in that
category. Wisconsin's rate is below the national rate of 639 inmates per
100,000 residents.

Are alternatives needed?

Milwaukee Pastor Joseph Ellwanger, an official with the church-based group
WISDOM that is pushing for alternatives to prison sentences for non-violent
offenders, said Wisconsin needs to rely more on treatment than incarceration.

"It's rather clear that we have not found alternative methods of helping
people with addictions deal with those addictions," Ellwanger said. "We
have used prison as the route to go. We have been very punitive."

Ellwanger said his group wants to require judges to send offenders to
treatment programs rather than to prison.

Oliver said statistics also have shown that generally the smaller the
proportion the black population is of the entire population, the higher the
black incarceration rate is.

"On a proportional basis, blacks are more likely to be incarcerated where
they are a smaller percentage of the population," Oliver said.

In Wisconsin, blacks make up about 5.7% of the population; nationally, the
black population is 12.4%, according to the latest U.S. Census Bureau figures.

Most out-of-state inmates

The federal study also found that Wisconsin continues to lead the nation in
the export of prisoners. Wisconsin had 4,526 inmates housed in other states
or federal institutions, far outpacing second-place Hawaii, with 1,225 in
mid-2001, according to the report. Wisconsin was one of four states that
had more than 20% of its prison population housed in out-of-state
facilities as of June 30, 2001.

The number has dropped significantly since then, however. As of this week,
there were 3,318 inmates placed in out-of-state institutions, said
Department of Corrections spokesman Bill Clausius.

The decline is due to several factors, including a number of inmates who
reached their 48-month limit in placements outside Wisconsin; openings in
state prisons; and some inmates reaching mandatory release dates.

The out-of-state inmate population could decline significantly when the
state opens an already-built 1,500-bed prison in Stanley. It could open as
early as this September or as late as March 2004, depending on how state
lawmakers resolve their differences over the budget adjustment bill.

The report issued Wednesday also showed that nationwide the number of
people in prison grew last year at the slowest rate in three decades.

The total population in all prisons and jails rose a bit more than 1%,
nearing 2 million, according to the annual report. Tougher anti-crime
policies, more facilities and longer sentences are the reasons cited for
the decades-long increase in the prison population.