By Shane King
Dear Friends and members of the prison reform community,
With media attention, calls for change and the momentum for prison reform is at a level I haven’t seen in 35 years. I see reason for long awaited hope but I am concerned that we, the reform community and prisoners, may lose the opportunity to affect real, fundamental reform with calls for closing prisons.
Judges, my dear friends, are not going to stop sentencing people to prison because the DOC has no place to put them. Wisconsin’s prison system is already critically overcrowded which is one significant factor in the deaths and other deplorable conditions inside. That will only make problems worse.
The buildings did not create the conditions, policies, cultures that led to the deaths of prisoners and now staff. They didn’t increase tensions, remove positive incentives for good behavior, gut resources for meaningful rehabilitation, medical and mental health care or turn the entire system over to profiteers. Those are decades long issues created by policy.
Likewise, moving the same old problems from one location to another has also contributed to the very events that are causing concern now. Instead of being held accountable, for example, employees who are negligent or suspected of wrongdoing are routinely transferred to other locations.
I think we all agree that reducing the prison population is the goal. And I think there are ways that can be accomplished in the short term, i.e. the immediate release of prisoners on crimeless revocations and low level drug crimes who could be receiving
the treatment they need outside of the prison system. Releasing those prisoners can free up resources needed elsewhere to help reduce recidivism.
The money that that will be saved can be applied to the long term goal of reducing recidivism via fundamental program reforms that recognize that these prisoners are human beings who need help getting on the right track.
Below are some of the more salient problems that I believe can have a significant impact on reducing the prison population long term if properly addressed.
SUBSTANCE ABUSE
According to the Vera Institute the percentage of people incarcerated for crimes directly resulting from substance abuse is 65%. Approximately 14,000 people in Wisconsin prisons. Yet according to the DOC’s own treatment coordinator, Alisha Kraus, the DOC only provides treatment to 845 prisoners at any given time. There are 11,000 prisoners on the waiting list for treatment while the WDOC itself proclaims there is an epidemic of drug abuse in its prisons. Treatment is not a panacea but the evidence is that we can do much, much better. And we can save lives.
FAMILY TIES
And the measures which the DOC takes thinking it will reduce access to drugs are actually shown to increase, not reduce, drug abuse and violence in prisons. Most significantly restrictions and exorbitant fees on mail, visiting and other forms of communication that sever family ties. The WDOC has allowed the prison profiteers to drive a financial wedge between Wisconsin prisoners and their loved ones in a very short sighted attempt to raise funds but it will ultimately take a much larger toll on public safety and cost taxpayers millions when recidivism increases.
In 2011, the Minnesota Department of Corrections found that over 5 years, those prisoners who received at least three visits while incarcerated were 13% less likely to commit new crimes and 25% less likely to come back to prison for violations of their parole. And the likelihood of recidivism, as well as violence, drug use and misconduct inside prisons and jails drops as the number of visits increases. A 1972 study of California parolees found that those who did not have strong family ties in prison were 6 times more likely to recidivate.
MENTAL HEALTH
50% of prisoners deal with severe to moderate mental illness but the DOC offers little more than drugs and monitoring even while studies show that conditions inside prisons exacerbate mental illness which increases recidivism. At Fox Lake there are 8 psychologists for close to 1,400 people. Statistically 700 of them need mental health treatment. That means each psychologist would have about an hour per month per patient if they never read a file, did paper work attended a meeting or took a vacation.
The Bureau of Justice Statistics reports a significant correlation between physical and sexual abuse prior to incarceration and crime. Overall 16% of males and 57% of female prisoners reported prior physical abuse and the authors of those studies suspect under reporting. 14% of incarcerated males and 37% of females reported being abused before the age of 18. For comparison, those numbers are 5% and 17% respectively for the general public. Most poignantly, 75% of males and nearly 50% of females who were convicted of a violent crime were victims of abuse prior to their crime. And those don’t even include verbal and psychological abuse. There are ways to help people deal with that trauma productively. They need and deserve our help.
EDUCATION
The rate of recidivism among prisoners who receive an Associate’s degree is between 11% & 17%. 6% with a Bachelors. A 2013 Rand Co. study showed that for every dollar invested in educating prisoners we save five. Yet Pell Grants for prisoners were banned in 1994. And while that has changed in recent years this level of education is still only available to a small fraction of Wisconsin prisoners. It needs to become the norm, not the exception.
REDUCING THE PRISON POPULATION
Minnesota has a significantly smaller prison population and budget as a result of focusing on education and rehabilitation. Imagine the degree by which we can reduce the prison population, crime and the strain on the budget in Wisconsin if we address these factors by scientifically proven means.
The current tough-on-crime course has failed. I posit that we need to get smart on crime. But we need criminologists and sociologist not career bureaucrats steering the future of the WDOC. We could start by appointing an Ombudsman with a mandate to reform the system in these areas. Including hiring new leadership with the appropriate educational and experiential back grounds. It will take work and time but It’s the right thing to do for everyone involved.
Thank you all for your time and attention and for all your hard work. We would not have the opportunity which is presenting itself now without you. Lets make the most of it. Yours in the Light, S. Harlan King
Addendum: A couple additional long term suggestions for reducing overcrowding:
° End truth in sentencing. Offer retroactive sentence reductions. That would require the legislature. Perhaps if we get Tommy Thompson to take some interviews endorsing it we might have a shot at getting a coalition. I think the messaging that the tough on crime policies have failed and a smart on crime approach is what is needed for public safety might help.
° Commute the sentences of those of us in who received astronomically large prison sentences in the 90’s. Most of us are 60 or over. The incidences of criminality drop off dramatically among those over 35 years. Most of us have made dramatic changes in our lives and are completely different people than we were when we committed our crime.
The legislature killed the money in the budget for substance abuse treatment. Send them to outpatient treatment. Maybe they’ll reconsider in light of new revelations and media attention. Didn’t Josh Kaul get a huge settlement over opioids from the drug companies? Where is that money?
Dehumanization:
The second biggest factor is dehumanization. Studies at UC Berkeley by psychologist Dacher Keltner have shown that giving people power; particularly without accountability or oversight, makes them less able or willing to empathize with the impact of their decisions on people or to even put themselves in their shoes. They are more likely to cheat and abuse the power they are given.
The contempt for prisoners and their families seems apparent in practically every policy from cramming prisoners in spaces designed for significantly fewer people, squeezing the food and health care budgets until the diet is mainly carbs and heath care is rationed into a perfunctory gesture. Taxing our loved ones for the basic right to communicate with us.
Lack of Oversight
Combine those factors with lack of oversight and abuse is a foregone conclusion.
The Prison Litigation Reform Act put up all but insurmountable barriers to accessing judicial oversight. We should work for repeal but in the interim. Funding for filing fees and other expenses which deter prisoners from bringing legal challenges to DOC policy could help.
The courts have had a policy of “due deference” to the expertise of agency officials. That means trying the wisdom or efficacy of polices has been effectively off limits. But last month, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned that precedent.