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."