Post by abbey1227 on Apr 15, 2022 13:25:31 GMT
I've seen article after article noting a rise in crime all over the US. But they're not really sure WHY?
The Post-Crescent
There are thousands fewer people in Wisconsin’s prisons than before the pandemic. What happened?
Chris Mueller, Appleton Post-Crescent Tue, April 12, 2022, 6:00 AM·6 min read
The population in Wisconsin's prisons, like the Oshkosh Correctional Institution, has fallen by thousands during the pandemic.
The population in Wisconsin's prisons, like the Oshkosh Correctional Institution, has fallen by thousands during the pandemic.
There were 23,167 people in Wisconsin's prisons on March 20, 2020, three days before all visits were suspended in an effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
Two years later, the state’s prison population has fallen to the lowest level in decades, a sign of the pandemic’s far-reaching impact on the criminal justice system. The number of people in Wisconsin's prison stood at 19,878 as of April 1, about 3,000 fewer than before the pandemic.
There are a variety of reasons for the decline in the state's prison population, including fewer arrests being made across the state, criminal cases taking longer in the courts and, ultimately, fewer people being admitted to prison.
Wisconsin isn't alone, either. There are about 1.9 million people in prisons and jails across the country right now, almost 400,000 fewer than there were before the pandemic, according to a report released last month by the Prison Policy Initiative.
The threat of the virus changed much about day-to-day life in prison: all in-person visits stopped; many shared spaces, such as libraries or barber shops, closed; most classes and other programs were canceled; meals were often brought directly to people in their cells.
The virus still found ways to spread, despite those precautions. More than 15,200 positive cases have been reported among incarcerated people in Wisconsin since the pandemic began, according to the Wisconsin Department of Corrections. The vast majority of people recovered, but some did not: 33 incarcerated people died of COVID-19 in Wisconsin’s prisons.
Many advocates for prison reform, including groups in Wisconsin, saw the risks people in prison faced as a result of COVID-19 and took steps early in the pandemic to try to convince officials to release at-risk people from prisons to save lives and limit the spread of the virus.
“A sentence that might only have been for five or 10 years could, in an instant, become a death sentence,” said Wanda Bertram, a communications strategist for the Prison Policy Initiative.
But the decline in the prison populations across the country largely weren't the result of any intentional efforts by prison officials, as many advocates had hoped, she said. Instead, it was an unintentional consequence of the pandemic.
“Even states that released large numbers of people during the pandemic did not really release that many more people than they normally do,” she said. “Most states actually released fewer people.”
That's exactly what happened in Wisconsin. The number of people released from prison went down each of the last three years from 9,340 in 2019 to 8,894 in 2020 to 6,978 in 2021.
The number of prison admissions dropped at the same time by more than 40%, falling from 9,275 in 2019 to 5,396 in 2020, a significant reason for the overall decline in the state's prison population.
The trend has already started to go in the other direction: in 2021, admissions increased again, reaching 6,919.
“I think it’s safe to say the pandemic and its various impacts altered the trajectory of the state prison population,” said John Beard, communications director for the Wisconsin Department of Corrections.
Why are there fewer people in prison?
A potential explanation for the state's lower prison population, and one that advocates had hoped for, turned out not to be a factor at all.
The law allows early releases for health reasons under certain conditions: if someone is at least 65 and has served at least five years, they’re at least 60 and have served at least 10 years, or they have an “extraordinary health condition,” a term specifically defined by a state statute.
But from March 1, 2020, to April 1, 2022, only 20 applications for that type of early release were approved out of 247 received by the state Department of Corrections.
Peggy West-Schroder, a coordinator for Ex-Incarcerated People Organizing, said many of the COVID-19 deaths in Wisconsin's prisons might have been prevented had more people with health risks been released early in the pandemic.
"That ship has sailed," she said.
There were some efforts by state officials to reduce the number of people behind bars during the pandemic, though.
The criteria to qualify for the state's earned release program, designed to give people with substance use disorders a chance at early release, were changed to make more people eligible to participate, Beard said.
Changes were also made to the way the state responds when people violate rules after they're released from prison and placed on community supervision, Beard said.
"The goal is to provide an appropriate response to violations that maintain community safety, while also reducing the number of people revoked from community supervision and returned to state prisons," he said.
Many advocates have for years urged state officials to make similar changes to the way those types of violations are handled, West-Schroder said.
"We're just happy they're not incarcerating people who are in need of treatment and are allowing them to do that treatment in the community," she said.
The primary reasons for the decline in the state's prison population has more to do with the pandemic's effect on other parts of the criminal justice system.
The number of people arrested has fallen by more than 25 percent in the last two years, from 238,528 in 2019 to 175,551 in 2021, according to the Wisconsin Department of Justice.
The state's court system, meanwhile, slowed to a crawl as the pandemic raged, leaving judges, prosecutors and defense attorneys to deal with a massive backlog of cases still expected to take years to sort out.
"There are so many people waiting to get their day in court," said West-Schroder, who expects the backlog to contribute to an increase in the state's prison population as more pending cases finally get resolved.
What happens next?
At the height of the pandemic, it wasn't uncommon for there to be hundreds of active cases of COVID-19 at a time in Wisconsin's prisons.
The situation has improved since then: as of Friday, there were only 11 active cases among incarcerated people in the state.
More than 80 percent of people in the state's prisons have been fully vaccinated and 72 percent of those eligible have received a booster — higher percentages in both categories than Wisconsin residents as a whole.
The decline in the number of active cases and the widespread availability of vaccines has allowed the state's prisons to resume many normal operations, Beard said.
In July, in-person visitation was allowed again, only to be suspended briefly when cases spiked later in the year before starting up again last month.
But, as things start to return to normal in prison, advocates expect the number of people behind bars in the state to begin to climb again.
“We know that this number is going to go back up,” said Melissa Ludin, a regional organizer for ACLU of Wisconsin's Campaign for Smart Justice.
Without broader criminal justice reform, the state's prison population will inevitably grow again, Ludin said. And despite the sharp decline in the number of active cases in prisons, COVID-19 still remains a threat.
“We know out here that this is something that is not going to go away,” she said.
There are thousands fewer people in Wisconsin’s prisons than before the pandemic. What happened?
Chris Mueller, Appleton Post-Crescent Tue, April 12, 2022, 6:00 AM·6 min read
The population in Wisconsin's prisons, like the Oshkosh Correctional Institution, has fallen by thousands during the pandemic.
The population in Wisconsin's prisons, like the Oshkosh Correctional Institution, has fallen by thousands during the pandemic.
There were 23,167 people in Wisconsin's prisons on March 20, 2020, three days before all visits were suspended in an effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
Two years later, the state’s prison population has fallen to the lowest level in decades, a sign of the pandemic’s far-reaching impact on the criminal justice system. The number of people in Wisconsin's prison stood at 19,878 as of April 1, about 3,000 fewer than before the pandemic.
There are a variety of reasons for the decline in the state's prison population, including fewer arrests being made across the state, criminal cases taking longer in the courts and, ultimately, fewer people being admitted to prison.
Wisconsin isn't alone, either. There are about 1.9 million people in prisons and jails across the country right now, almost 400,000 fewer than there were before the pandemic, according to a report released last month by the Prison Policy Initiative.
The threat of the virus changed much about day-to-day life in prison: all in-person visits stopped; many shared spaces, such as libraries or barber shops, closed; most classes and other programs were canceled; meals were often brought directly to people in their cells.
The virus still found ways to spread, despite those precautions. More than 15,200 positive cases have been reported among incarcerated people in Wisconsin since the pandemic began, according to the Wisconsin Department of Corrections. The vast majority of people recovered, but some did not: 33 incarcerated people died of COVID-19 in Wisconsin’s prisons.
Many advocates for prison reform, including groups in Wisconsin, saw the risks people in prison faced as a result of COVID-19 and took steps early in the pandemic to try to convince officials to release at-risk people from prisons to save lives and limit the spread of the virus.
“A sentence that might only have been for five or 10 years could, in an instant, become a death sentence,” said Wanda Bertram, a communications strategist for the Prison Policy Initiative.
But the decline in the prison populations across the country largely weren't the result of any intentional efforts by prison officials, as many advocates had hoped, she said. Instead, it was an unintentional consequence of the pandemic.
“Even states that released large numbers of people during the pandemic did not really release that many more people than they normally do,” she said. “Most states actually released fewer people.”
That's exactly what happened in Wisconsin. The number of people released from prison went down each of the last three years from 9,340 in 2019 to 8,894 in 2020 to 6,978 in 2021.
The number of prison admissions dropped at the same time by more than 40%, falling from 9,275 in 2019 to 5,396 in 2020, a significant reason for the overall decline in the state's prison population.
The trend has already started to go in the other direction: in 2021, admissions increased again, reaching 6,919.
“I think it’s safe to say the pandemic and its various impacts altered the trajectory of the state prison population,” said John Beard, communications director for the Wisconsin Department of Corrections.
Why are there fewer people in prison?
A potential explanation for the state's lower prison population, and one that advocates had hoped for, turned out not to be a factor at all.
The law allows early releases for health reasons under certain conditions: if someone is at least 65 and has served at least five years, they’re at least 60 and have served at least 10 years, or they have an “extraordinary health condition,” a term specifically defined by a state statute.
But from March 1, 2020, to April 1, 2022, only 20 applications for that type of early release were approved out of 247 received by the state Department of Corrections.
Peggy West-Schroder, a coordinator for Ex-Incarcerated People Organizing, said many of the COVID-19 deaths in Wisconsin's prisons might have been prevented had more people with health risks been released early in the pandemic.
"That ship has sailed," she said.
There were some efforts by state officials to reduce the number of people behind bars during the pandemic, though.
The criteria to qualify for the state's earned release program, designed to give people with substance use disorders a chance at early release, were changed to make more people eligible to participate, Beard said.
Changes were also made to the way the state responds when people violate rules after they're released from prison and placed on community supervision, Beard said.
"The goal is to provide an appropriate response to violations that maintain community safety, while also reducing the number of people revoked from community supervision and returned to state prisons," he said.
Many advocates have for years urged state officials to make similar changes to the way those types of violations are handled, West-Schroder said.
"We're just happy they're not incarcerating people who are in need of treatment and are allowing them to do that treatment in the community," she said.
The primary reasons for the decline in the state's prison population has more to do with the pandemic's effect on other parts of the criminal justice system.
The number of people arrested has fallen by more than 25 percent in the last two years, from 238,528 in 2019 to 175,551 in 2021, according to the Wisconsin Department of Justice.
The state's court system, meanwhile, slowed to a crawl as the pandemic raged, leaving judges, prosecutors and defense attorneys to deal with a massive backlog of cases still expected to take years to sort out.
"There are so many people waiting to get their day in court," said West-Schroder, who expects the backlog to contribute to an increase in the state's prison population as more pending cases finally get resolved.
What happens next?
At the height of the pandemic, it wasn't uncommon for there to be hundreds of active cases of COVID-19 at a time in Wisconsin's prisons.
The situation has improved since then: as of Friday, there were only 11 active cases among incarcerated people in the state.
More than 80 percent of people in the state's prisons have been fully vaccinated and 72 percent of those eligible have received a booster — higher percentages in both categories than Wisconsin residents as a whole.
The decline in the number of active cases and the widespread availability of vaccines has allowed the state's prisons to resume many normal operations, Beard said.
In July, in-person visitation was allowed again, only to be suspended briefly when cases spiked later in the year before starting up again last month.
But, as things start to return to normal in prison, advocates expect the number of people behind bars in the state to begin to climb again.
“We know that this number is going to go back up,” said Melissa Ludin, a regional organizer for ACLU of Wisconsin's Campaign for Smart Justice.
Without broader criminal justice reform, the state's prison population will inevitably grow again, Ludin said. And despite the sharp decline in the number of active cases in prisons, COVID-19 still remains a threat.
“We know out here that this is something that is not going to go away,” she said.
![[giveup]](http://storage.proboards.com/7182076/images/FSYefibmKqtatIXMgHZg.gif)
![[giveup]](http://storage2.proboards.com/7182076/images/FSYefibmKqtatIXMgHZg.gif)
![[rolleye1]](http://storage.proboards.com/7182076/images/MTjbungPBOzv0BKQvdPJ.gif)
![[rolleye1]](http://storage2.proboards.com/7182076/images/MTjbungPBOzv0BKQvdPJ.gif)
![[crazy1]](http://storage.proboards.com/7182076/images/ue0z0fwvecEC0UQSHAmw.gif)
![[cheers]](http://storage.proboards.com/7182076/images/engyBVslEdpmpmdnBwZQ.gif)
