Facts and Policy Reforms for Wisconsin
Like most states, Wisconsin’s prison population has exploded in recent decades.
Between 1980 and 2016, Wisconsin’s prison population increased more than fivefold. As of December 2018, more than 23,000 people were imprisoned in the state.
Between 2000 and 2016, the number of people admitted to Wisconsin prisons for an opioid-related offense grew from 4 percent of all drug offense admissions, to 41 percent of all drug offense admissions. Crimeless revocations of community supervision— the imprisonment of an individual for violating a rule of supervision that generally does not involve a new crime — are the single largest contributor to Wisconsin’s prison population. In 2017, these revocations accounted for 37 percent of all prison admissions in the state.
Unsurprisingly, Wisconsin’s mass incarceration crisis has had an enormous impact on people of color, especially Black people. As of 2017, the per capita imprisonment rate of Black adults in Wisconsin was nearly 12 times higher than that of white adults, and one in every 14 adult Black men in the state was in prison. Ending mass incarceration is a critical — although insufficient — step towards addressing racial disparities in Wisconsin’s criminal justice system as well as its broader society.
Women are also being sent to prison in Wisconsin at alarming rates. Between 1980 and 2016, the number of women in the state’s prisons grew by 816 percent.
But it doesn’t have to be this way.
Wisconsin can dramatically reduce its prison population by implementing just a few sensible reforms:
- Enacting legislation to put an end to crimeless supervision revocations.
- Increasing investment in alternatives to incarceration, particularly for people in need of mental health or substance use treatment programs.
- Amending the Treatment Alternatives and Diversion (TAD) statute to permit people convicted of violent offenses to participate in the program.
- Limiting the circumstances and severity of the state’s truth-in-sentencing law.
- Requiring data transparency from police and prosecutors on how their decisions impact Black people and other communities of color.
Were Wisconsin to follow these and other reforms outlined in this Smart Justice 50-State Blueprint, by 2025 it could have 12,170 fewer people in its prison system, saving the state over $886 million dollars that could be spent on schools, roads, and businesses in the state.
For more information, along with detailed breakdowns of Wisconsin’s prison population and the reforms needed to reduce it, click here.