The Inmate Population And The Budget Of The Wisconsin...

The problem to be addressed in this policy memo concerns the size of the inmate population in Wisconsin and the budget of the Wisconsin Department of Corrections. Throughout this memo I will look at the current situation and how it arose with regard to the justice system in Wisconsin, while examining the scale of the issue and looking at the whether the various options would help tackle the issue at hand. In consideration of the analysis I have done, I would suggest further increasing funding for Treatment Alternative Diversion (TAD) programs for reasons that will become clear. Background Summary In Wisconsin the prison population and the budget has been growing for years and looks to keep on rising as the inmate population has risen from†¦show more content†¦With these statistics in mind the budget and inmate population is likely to increase as time goes on if action is not taken in the near future. A large portion of the increase could be attributed to the national war on drugs and Wisconsin’s truth in sentencing laws which have led to more people being arrested and those who are arrested remaining in correctional facilities for a longer period of time. These policy actions coincide with the rise of the budget and inmate numbers as can be seen that the DOC budget went from Wisconsin’s 7th largest expenditure in 1989 to it 3rd largest in 2009(Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance, 2010). One solution suggested to reducing the budget is to try to reduce the number of people being returned to prison without a new sentence as in 2014 they made up 42.9% of prison a dmissions (WI DOC, 2014) some of these have been for technical violations such as showing up late for a meeting with a parole supervisors. The suggestion to reduce these prison admissions would be for sanctions courts to be set up which don’t send the parolee back to prison for technical violations straight away but rather sanctions them with actions such as electronic monitoring, counseling or community service, a similar program to this has already been tried in