Tag Archives: Philip Klinker

The Black incarceration rate in Wisconsin may defy belief, but it’s real.

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Protesters outside Wisconsin’s Waupun Correctional Institute after the deaths of three inmates due to reportedly poor health conditions and care. Courtesy Waupun Pioneer Press.

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I count myself a proud Wisconsin native of a beautiful, bountiful state with an embattled progressive tradition. I was aware of a serious state problem of excessive incarceration, but I never realized the radical severity of the problem, which is surely fixable!

Recently in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel‘s Ideas Section, columnist Jeffrey Sommers (a political economy and public policy professor at UWM) reported that we have the highest incarceration rate of Black citizens in not only the country.

Per capita, Wisconsin’s jailing of 2,250 Blacks per 100,000 Black adults exceeds the highest general incarceration rate of any of the world’s 223 countries measured. El Salvador’s 1,659 per 100,000 was second highest. Curiously the United States general rate is “only” 541 (per 100 K). This indicates a serious problem of racial profiling in our state, which supposedly was addressed years ago.

Several sources on this confirmed the global rate information, including the World Population Review. 1

The Wisconsin writer pointed out that the alleged reason for these policies is to lower the crime rate, but the figures show they failed to produce comparably lower rates, if you determine it by people jailed.

I have never been more shocked or disgusted at my own state’s doings. We should hold the too-long Republican controlled legislature primarily responsible for this, though I haven’t heard Democrats addressing it much either.

Not so coincidentally, the next page of the same Ideas Section included Philip Klinker’s  letter to the editor bemoaning that the only way to reduce the state prison population that’s caused so many problems otherwise is to repeal petty criminal statutes. But “no politician in the state is brave enough to advocate to repeal the laws of petty criminal statutes” – a big part of the problem.

Is that true of our officials? Is it an awareness problem, blase governance? Or worse?

A couple of factors are key. Bail jumping in Wisconsin is a common petty crime that involves such innocuous activities as driving to work when the bail said you couldn’t.  If you are accused of a felony, the charge carries a six-year maximum sentence. It doesn’t matter if you are found innocent of the crime, the bail jumping charge still stands. Various factors apply depending on your case.

Then there’s too-common charge of “disorderly conduct” which evidently amounts to anything the police or prosecutor says it is.  A review of the state statutes shows that a vast array of activity or behaviors — even victimless — can be interpreted by officers as “disorderly” and result in a Class B misdemeanor. 2

Think about the fractured or destroyed lives incarceration can produce, especially for those imprisoned for an extended period, or unjustly.

A widely-disseminated 2023 news report said four inmates at Waupun’s aging Correctional Institute have died over the last four months. One death was confirmed as a suicide. The other two deaths remain under investigation. “A group of Waupun inmates filed a federal lawsuit in Milwaukee last week alleging conditions at that prison amount to cruel and unusual punishment. The prisoners allege they can’t get access to health care, with guards telling them their illnesses are ’all in your head’ and they should ‘pray’ for a cure.”

Cameron Williams. (Submitted photo) The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel

One 24-year-old black man, Cameron Williams, died of a rare stroke after extended solitary confinement and deprivation which shocked his fellow prisoners, who heard his cries for help to officials and “blood-curdling screams.” He was he was serving a three-year sentence for burglary — he’d pushed a woman to take her purse.  3

All of these problems amount to moral arrogance, or at least negligence, far below this state’s history of honor.

Democratic leaders recently have written a bill to remedy crowded and poor prison living conditions. That hardly goes far enough.

Where are our real leaders on this? It may not be easy in our polarized political climate, but all the more crucial as we’re a key swing state in elections. We need voting citizens. The policies may also reflect increasingly extensive and gratuitous voter suppression efforts.

Make your voice heard, however possible. Let’s repeal these laws or Wisconsin will continue to dwell in immoral disgrace comparable to a wretched prison cell.

Kevin Lynch (Kevernacular)

Milwaukee

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