The BIG LIE

the BIG Lie

   Today we see Wisconsin saddled with stuffed prisons  in which the mission to rehabilitate prisoners and keep the public safe has been largely lost.  Conditions for staff have deteriorated to the point there is a severe shortage of staff at all levels from professional health care staff to guards and many prisons are on almost permanent lockdown.

    The wise solution is to incarcerate only those people who need to be in prison . And treat and train- rehabilitate those we do lock up. Instead we have the most obscene irony: While most old law prisoners (OL) , are told at their parole hearings that they will not be released because they “have not served enough time for punishment” and/or releasing them would the “pose an undue risk to the public”, the DOC releases the truth in sentencing inmates ( TIS) regularly as the law demands often without treatment or training and virtually no support and often straight from years in solitary.

      The Old Law prisoners, who are entombed for decade after decade, have had the training and treatment that was available in the years before TIS was enacted, and many got college degrees through Pell Grants then offered. They are truly ready for society in the main; yet the prison proponents try to whip the public into hysteria over “murderers” and “Rapists” while in truth, people change and these people have had long years of learning and want to give back.

     At the same time our resources are wasted on keeping Old law prisoners because, we are told, they are “Dangerous”, very little training  or treatment is available to TIS inmates,( those incarcerated after 2000). Most are under thirty and have not learned yet the lessons on self control the years teach.  

     Many are mentally ill and wind up in solitary where suicides and suicide attempts are daily occurrences.  Many TIS inmates beg for treatment at Wisconsin Resource Center (WRC, the one treatment center available to the system)- before release and many are not given a referral. Each prison’s social workers are tasked with referring disabled prisoners of their choice  to an organization that prepares SSI benefits before release but that does not happen for most mentally ill prisoners and they are released little hope of success. They are given a state issues ID, food stamps and a curfew. A letter from one inmate writing one month before release sums up the situation: 

“I get released in a month back to the same neighborhood where I was before prison . I have had no treatment and no training and am drug addicted. I have no support and the DOC offers almost none. What do you think I will end up doing? “

– We need these parole rules or guidelines to start the healing process. The system is broken to the core and nothing can help it until the population is reduced.  We demand that the WIDOC renew its commitment to its mission- to rehabilitate prisoners and keep the public safe.  We can do this safely and effectively starting with an effective parole system.