Conservatively Speaking

There is a disturbing trend in states across America, including here in Wisconsin, as lawmakers toy with alternatives to prison as a means of alleviating overcrowding. Stateline.org reports prison construction continues to place more beds for inmates, but other creative measures are being explored, including revising sentences, earlier release dates, and shipping prisoners out of state.

State spending on prisons increased by 10 percent in America last fiscal year due to increasing prisoner populations, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. When it comes to spending by state governments, education and health care are at the top, followed by corrections.

The conventional wisdom around the country, according to Adam Gelb, project director of the Public Safety Performance Project is, more and more states are trying to cut back on corrections. “The more they spend on prisons, the less they have to spend on health, education and other priorities,” said Gelb.

Efforts to loosen sentences, release inmates early and place more inmates in rehabilitation programs come at a bad time. Advocates for change claim violent crime has been on a decline for many years. That may have been true up until recently.

ABC News reported this month that for the second year in a row, violent crime has increased. A Justice Department report cites a 1.3 percent increase in 2006. But robberies were up six percent, and murders in large cities also were up six percent.

James Fox, a professor at Northeastern University, said part of the problem is that "gangs have made a comeback, and they are particularly well organized."

"For years it has been very frustrating for those citizens and to the police when you hear all the press and media relations saying things are better, things are safer, and yet you have citizens still afraid to go to the grocery store," Officer Kristopher Baumann, chairman of the Fraternal Order of the D.C. Police Labor Committee, told ABC News.

So violent crime is trending upward, no time to start opening up the prison doors.

Supporters also point to the high cost of incarceration and the strain it puts on state budgets. Corrections is expensive. However, there’s a flip side to this coin, another piece of the equation that must be considered: the high cost of letting prisoners out and the toll it takes on victims of crime.

Crimes of rape, robbery, assault, personal and household theft, burglary, and motor vehicle theft cost victims of crime in America billions of dollars each year according to the U.S. Department of Justice. These costs include losses from property theft or damage, cash losses, medical expenses, and amount of pay lost because of injury or activities related to the crime.

The National Center for Victims of Crime also keeps crime statistics:

• Nearly 18 million violent and non-violent crime victimizations (77 percent of all victimizations) resulted in economic losses in 2002.
• Crime is estimated to create $105 billion in medical expenses, lost earnings, and costs for victim services. Factoring in the intangible costs, such as pain and suffering and a reduced quality of life, brings the total estimated cost of crime to $450 billion annually.
• Victims of violent crime and their families received benefits totaling $442.3 billion in federal fiscal year 2003. While California (the largest victim compensation program in the nation) experienced a drop of close to $43 million in fiscal year 2003, compensation in the other 51 jurisdictions (including Washington, DC, U.S. Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico) grew by $26 million.
• Medical expenses were 48 percent of all victim compensation payments in 2003; economic support for lost wages for injured victims and for lost support in homicides comprised 21 percent of the total; and 12 percent went toward mental health counseling for crime victims.
• Reported burglaries resulted in an estimated monetary loss of $3.5 billion, with an estimated average of $1,626 per burglary.
• In 2003, the average value of property stolen due to larceny-theft was $698. Cumulatively, $4.9 billion in property was stolen.
• The average monetary value of motor vehicles stolen in 2003 was $6,797. The total value of stolen motor vehicles was $8.6 billion.
• The average dollar loss due to arson offenses was $11,942 per offense in 2003.
• Correctional authorities spend more than $38 billion to maintain the nation’s correctional systems in one year.

This legislative session, I serve on the state Senate’s Committee on Judiciary and Corrections. I have witnessed first-hand the sentiment that Wisconsin should cut back on Corrections, open the cell doors and let more prisoners go.

I’m not buying their argument that we cannot afford corrections. The fact is the state cannot afford not to put prisoners away.