ALLIANCE PRESENTS PLAN TO HELP DRUG OFFENDERS GET TREATMENT

Some Lawmakers Vow Support For Bill To Curb Imprisonment

Calling it the most important proposal it has ever advanced, a group of 43
Milwaukee congregations unveiled a plan Thursday - minus its star sponsor -
to send non-violent drug offenders into treatment instead of prison.

State Sen. Gary George (D-Milwaukee) was scheduled to appear before MICAH's
annual meeting at Our Savior's Lutheran Church, 3022 W. Wisconsin Ave., to
give specifics on the measure he plans to introduce before the state
Legislature.

But George and two of his staff members were injured in an accident earlier
Thursday in northern Wisconsin and could not attend the meeting.

Instead, Dan Rossmiller, George's chief of staff, appeared at the rally to
tell an audience of more than 1,500 people that George was committed to the
proposal and plans to fight for it before the legislature.

The proposal has not yet been fully drafted, Rossmiller said.

But he said that it will include provisions to change the state criminal
code and allow non-violent drug offenders not convicted of selling a drug
to be sentenced to treatment, thereby saving the state the money it would
have spent to incarcerate them.

Hattie Oglen of Pilgrim Rest Baptist Church, one of the chief members of
MICAH's drug and alcohol treatment committee, said about half of those
sentenced to prison in Wisconsin are there for non-violent drug-related crimes.

"The poor and minorities end up in prison," said Oglen.

"People with addiction and money go to treatment. People with addiction and
without money go to prison. MICAH won't rest until every addicted person
who wants help can get it."

MICAH - or the Milwaukee Innercity Congregations Allied for Hope - is
calling the campaign to change Wisconsin's drug sentencing laws its
priority issue in 2002.

State Reps. Antonio Riley, Leon Young, Spencer Coggs and Johnnie
Morris-Tatum, all Democrats, plan to support the bill.

Reps. Dan Vrakas and Scott Walker, both Republicans, have also pledged to
support the proposal, which is modeled after California's Proposition 36.

That voter-backed initiative now mandates treatment instead of prison for
first- and second-time offenders who use or possess drugs. It was signed
into law in July.

Similar laws that call for treatment instead of incarceration are in place
in Arizona and New Mexico.