Issue Position: Getting Smart on Crime

Issue Position

Many a political career has been made by being "tough on crime" in Wisconsin. Yet, our state taxpayers end up with a big bill and no additional public protection to show for it. Minnesota, with almost identical population, demographics and crime rates to Wisconsin, has well under half as many persons in state prisons as do we. Minnesota is spending a little more than $500 million a year on corrections while Wisconsin spends nearly $1.3 billion--over twice as much and more than we spend on the University of Wisconsin system. Prisons should be used to keep dangerous offenders out of the community, not to demonstrate how tough politicians can be. Non-violent offenders should work off their debt to society in the community whenever it can be done safely. For such offenders, I will propose an intensive supervision program--one that will involve daily interaction with supervising agents, short-term confinement when needed, and interventions that will keep such offenders off drugs and alcohol, and at work or in school. This will force these offenders onto the road to being productive citizens while reducing enormous taxpayer expenditures.

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