LONGER PRISON TERMS TO COST $40.9 MILLION

Truth-in-Sentencing Keeps Inmates Locked Up

By SARAH WYATT Associated Press

Madison - The state will likely pay an extra $40.9 million over the next
eight years to house a group of inmates sentenced under Wisconsin's
truth-in-sentencing law because their sentences have gotten substantially
longer, Department of Corrections statistics showed.

The DOC compared the sentences of 990 inmates who were imprisoned between
January 2000 and September 2001 with the average sentence lengths of
inmates released before truth-in-sentencing took effect in January 2000.

An Associated Press analysis of the data showed the truth-in-sentencing
inmates would serve 18,384 more months in prison than the earlier inmates,
costing the state about $40.9 million, based on the cost of housing
prisoners in 2001.

Wisconsin has 20,925 adult inmates.

State officials say judges are handing down stiffer sentences because they
now have wider sentencing ranges to choose from and no guidelines to ensure
that inmates serve approximately the same time in prison they did before
the law.

"Every day that goes by I think you're going to see a trend toward
lengthier and lengthier sentences," said Rep. Scott Walker (R-Wauwatosa),
chairman of the Assembly corrections committee.

Former Eau Claire Circuit Judge Thomas Barland was chairman of the Criminal
Penalties Study Committee that drafted changes to the state's sentencing
system. He said the analysis results were "shocking, but not unexpected."

"The truth-in-sentencing legislation now in effect has no caps on both
sentences and extended supervision to try to make them more comparable to
what they were before the law changed," Barland said.

For more than two years, state lawmakers have considered a bill that would
create new sentencing guidelines for judges, revamp many felony penalties
and create a sentencing commission to monitor sentences.

The bill has been passed twice by the Assembly, while the Senate has
approved its own version once. The Assembly proposal was most recently
included in Gov. Scott McCallum's budget adjustment bill, which has not yet
been considered by the full Legislature.

"Here's an opportunity where corrections could actually be saving money and
all the Legislature has to do is pass the truth-in-sentencing bill,"
McCallum spokeswoman Debbie Monterrey-Millett said.

The state's truth-in-sentencing law requires inmates who committed crimes
after Dec. 31, 1999, to spend their entire sentences behind bars. Parole
boards are no longer able to release those inmates early for good behavior
or mandatory release.

The department compared the sentences of 990 inmates sent to prison for a
single, non-parole violation offense. The sample included inmates convicted
of property, drug, assault and sexual assault crimes and represented 21% of
the 4,196 inmates sentenced between January 2000 and September 2001.

Corrections Secretary Jon Litscher was ill Tuesday and could not be reached
for comment, spokesman Bill Clausius said. Clausius declined to comment on
the report.