What’s Happening to Parole in Wisconsin?
What’s Happening to Parole in Wisconsin?
By Sherry Reames
The figures on the Parole Commission website show a huge recent drop in the number of paroles being granted. Between 2019 and 2022, an average of 167 individuals a year were released on parole. In 2023 the number plummeted to 37 (or 40, if we count those whose cases were heard in 2023 and added on the website in January and February 2024). The number so far in 2024 (as of April 20) is just one.
That is a shocking development, especially at a time when our prisons are dangerously overcrowded as well as understaffed. What in the world is going on?
Some basic points about parole and recidivism
- The only prisoners eligible for parole in Wisconsin are those whose crimes occurred before our 1999 truth-in-sentencing laws went into effect.
- Many of these prisoners were sentenced as juveniles or very young adults under the “tough on crime” policies of the Clinton administration. By now, 25 or 30 years later, they are mature adults. The possibility of parole has given them an incentive to continue their education, acquire job skills, and turn their lives around. If they have used their time in prison well, don’t they deserve a second chance?
- Statistically, mature individuals released on parole are very unlikely to commit another crime.
- According to The Sentencing Project, 20 years is a long enough sentence for most serious crimes. Incarcerating people longer than that may satisfy our desire for retribution, but it doesn’t add to their rehabilitation, and it doesn’t improve public safety.
- WISDOM believes that our state spends far too much money on prisons, money that could better be re-invested in education, child-care, public-health, and crime-prevention programs. As taxpayers, we should object in particular to the unnecessary incarceration of men and women who could be safely out in the community – earning a living, helping to support their families, and contributing to their communities and the workforce.
A year ago, the WISDOM workgroup on Old Law/Parole optimistically believed that the governor might be ready to re-establish the humane Wisconsin tradition of commuting the sentences of some prisoners who had received extreme sentences and served their time exceptionally well. Making such prisoners eligible for parole in the near future seemed like a good idea at that time, but with the parole system apparently frozen, it now sounds like a cruel joke.
WISDOM’s developing response to this setback.
So far, the Parole Commission has been resisting our inquiries, but we hope to have a meeting before long with the current chair, Jon Erpenbach. Our guess is that the Commission may still be reeling from the conservative backlash in 2022 against the attempt to release Douglas Balsewicz, which resulted in the firing of John Tate II and the legislature’s adoption of two new laws in 2023, Acts 31 and 230, which add further requirements to the parole process.
Besides trying to meet with Erpenbach, the Old Law/Parole workgroup is planning a community forum specifically focused on parole and commutation, probably to be held in Milwaukee in early June. Our goal is to create more public awareness of how the parole process is supposed to work, the advantages of enabling prisoners to earn a second chance by this means, and the unnecessary suffering we inflict on both incarcerated people and their families when we forget about their humanity and focus only on the victims of crime. Three MOSES members are already involved in this effort (Amanda Johnson, Kay Stevens, and I), and it would be wonderful to have many other participants from this part of the state. Please watch for future announcements about the forum. Plan to join us if you can, and bring some of your neighbors!