MILWAUKEE – Wisconsin sends more people to prison than any neighboring state and twice as many as Minnesota.

The cost of keeping one person in prison in Wisconsin for one year, according to the state Department of Corrections, is close to $30,000.

Wisconsin's adult prison system is designed to house 16,560 inmates, but right now it's holding more than 23,000 people.

In the state House, Milwaukee Democrat Evan Goyke says this is causing a huge problem.

"Cells are double and triple filled,” he states. “To pay for the overcrowding, $23,000 a day is spent to county jails to house state inmates, which will total $8.6 million in 2018."

Goyke points out that this money comes from the general fund and means less investment in other needed areas such as education, job creation or health care.

The new state budget allocates $1 billion for corrections spending and calls for creation of a task force to look into solutions.

While the adult prison system in Wisconsin is well over capacity, there has been a significant decline in the number of juveniles being held in the Lincoln Hills facility.

Right now there are approximately 135 boys at Lincoln Hills, which means the facility is about 70 percent vacant.

"As Lincoln Hills gets smaller, it also gets more expensive – $390 per day per juvenile,” he states. “This cost increase will lead to even fewer juveniles being sent to Lincoln Hills and highlights the challenging economic future for the facility."

Goyke's idea is to change the Lincoln Hills facility into an adult prison, and to develop smaller, regional facilities to treat juvenile offenders.

That would make available 500 more adult prison beds, which would only be part of a solution to ease crowding in the state's adult prison system.

Goyke says the Legislature needs to work on smart, innovative solutions for criminal justice reform.





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A package to improve public safety is moving ahead in the California state Legislature - with a floor vote in the State Assembly on the first bill expected this week.

Assembly Bill 2215 puts into statute that police officers have the discretion to send people arrested for low-level offenses directly to supportive services.

Anthony DiMartino - government affairs director with the nonprofit Californians for Safety and Justice - said sometimes public safety is best served when people avoid arrest and instead get therapy, addiction support or help getting a job.

"We're also hoping to raise awareness that this is something officers can do, and then also encourage partnerships more with officers to look at what's in their community," said DiMartino, "as alternatives to jail booking."

A second bill would increase transparency and accountability on money sent to the counties as part of the Public Safety Realignment.

A third bill would require police officers, prosecuting attorneys and investigators to identify themselves any time they're interviewing a family member of someone killed or severely injured by police.

DiMartino said they also support AB 2499, which would ensure that survivors of violent crime and their family members can take unpaid time off work to address safety concerns and heal.

"We're hoping to broaden the scope a bit," said DiMartino, "and make it more clear that family members of victims are able to also tap into unpaid leave to support their family member that has been a victim."

A fifth bill would make it easier for justice-involved people and crime victims to speak freely during restorative justice programs - by making the communications inadmissible in other legal proceedings.

Missouri went through with its first execution of the year, as Brian Dorsey was put to death last night, just after 6 p.m. CT.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to stop Dorsey's execution. He was convicted of murdering his cousin Sarah Bonnie and her husband Ben nearly 20 years ago.

The advocacy group Missourians to Abolish the Death Penalty launched several recent campaigns on Dorsey's behalf to spare his life.

Jenni Gerhauser, a cousin to both Dorsey and Sarah Bonnie, expressed belief in his redemption.

"Brian is more than the worst moment of his life," Gerhauser stressed. "There is so much more to him."

Gerhauser fondly remembered him as fun and charming from their visits during holidays. Dorsey's current lawyers said he was in a drug-induced psychosis when he killed the Bonnies in 2006 and his attorneys at the time had been offered money, preventing them from fighting the death penalty with his guilty plea deal.

Gov. Mike Parson confirmed Monday the state would move forward with Dorsey's death sentence, rejecting a separate request for clemency. More than 70 current and former corrections officers had urged the governor to commute Dorsey's sentence, arguing he had been rehabilitated.

Claudia Boyce, also a cousin in the family, said it should not be a decision for the state to make.

"You know, that's supposed to be God's decision, not ours," Boyce contended.

Dorsey received a lethal injection Tuesday evening. Lethal injection became an option for people on Missouri's death row in 1987, alongside lethal gas.


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Amid overcrowding and unsafe conditions in West Virginia jails, state lawmakers introduced bills that would allow judges to take a 'second look' at an individual's original sentence.

If a court determines they no longer pose a threat to the community, the person could be released, placed on supervision, or receive a shortened sentence.

Sara Whitaker - criminal legal policy analyst with the West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy - said West Virginia is one of the few states that has seen its prison population balloon over the past decade, despite declining crime.

She noted that as of last month, more than 500 people in the state were in jail awaiting transfer to a prison.

"As a result, eight out of 10 of the regional jails in the state were beyond capacity," said Whitaker, "with hundreds of people assigned to sleeping on the floor."

The bills failed to advance this session, but Whitaker said advocates are hopeful lawmakers will consider them next year.

The state's jails remain among the deadliest in the country, with at least 91 people losing their lives while incarcerated in the past few years.

According to the West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy, jail bills cost counties $45 million in 2022.

Nationwide, long sentences have led to growth in the number of older people behind bars.

Whitaker pointed out that 'Second Look' legislation could help the state avoid turning its prisons into nursing homes, and said the number of elderly people in prison has tripled in the past two decades.

"In 2019, West Virginia had to open a dementia unit in one of its prisons," said Whitaker. "There are hospice units across multiple prisons. And experts predict that this is just only going to get worse."

Whitaker added that 'Second Look' policies also offer a way to correct past racial injustice in the criminal legal system.

Black people incarcerated in West Virginia are four times more likely than white people to be serving a life sentence with the possibility of parole, and five times as likely to be serving a life-without-parole sentence.




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