Dozens of faith leaders in Wisconsin are outraged with the Legislature’s Joint Committee on Finance. It decided to increase prison spending in the next state budget by $5 million, in order to add capacity.
The organization WISDOM has been working to reduce the state’s prison population. “This is moving the pendulum in the wrong direction,” said former Milwaukee minister Joe Ellwanger at a WISDOM rally in Madison Wednesday. “Republican and Democratic states cross the nation are finding ways to reduce prison population. Texas has closed three prisons since 2011. Georgia has reduced prison population by investing in drug treatment courts.”
The faith leaders recommend drug treatment courts and mental health care as alternatives to prison. They also say the state should release very sick or elderly inmates.
At the rally, the Rev. Willie Brisco said now that the joint finance committee has drummed up extra funding in the proposed biennial budget, he has better ideas of how to spend it.
“Give me $5 million, and I will give 1,000 kids a better education. Give me $5 million, and I will increase transitional jobs so individuals that come out of prison will have something to do and a job that will support their families,” Brisco said.
According to the Legislative Fiscal Bureau, the state needs extra funding for prison beds because the prison population is rising. The reasons cited include more incarcerations for OWI and longer sentences, overall.
Democrats on joint finance agree with faith leaders that prison numbers actually should be coming down. Republicans rejected that input, in addition to other proposed Democratic tweaks to the Department of Corrections budget. That brought on a Democratic accusation that Republicans only favor corrections legislation that directly benefits people in GOP communities. The allegation upset committee co-chair John Nygren.
“When it comes to the substance of what we are trying to accomplish regarding corrections, regarding addiction, regarding mental health, I will not have my integrity or my colleagues’ integrity called into question,” Nygren said.
Nygren says the GOP-led Legislature has been making corrections-related changes in the last few years, in line with Democrats’ wishes.
“You can be critical that we’re not going far enough, but we’ve moved this state forward and we should be proud of that. We’ve got more work to be done, and you can criticize it every step of the way -- you have that right. But don’t insult our integrity that we’re not trying to accomplish things that might be quite similar to your own,” Nygren said.
Members of the faith groups who want to redirect funding hand-delivered their request to Republican legislative leaders. The groups hope lawmakers will make changes to the spending plan when the full Assembly and Senate take up the budget next month.
