Up to 3,000 convicted felons who perhaps should still legally be in prison may be wandering the streets of Wisconsin. That's a comforting thought, isn't it?
This month, during the investigation of a Milwaukee murderer, the Department of Justice uncovered missing or faulty DNA data for thousands of prison inmates. The actual failure is more extensive than 3,000 people. An estimated 12,000 DNA samples are mismatched, incorrectly filed or missing from the databank of 128,605 samples.
Gov. Jim Doyle described the situation as ""very troubling."" Given the possible risk to people's safety, that is quite an understatement. This is simple downright incompetence. While we recognize that government is not always the most clean and innocent enterprise, we at least hope that the people we put there know what they're doing. It's not a terribly high standard, but somehow the Departments of Justice and Corrections have failed to reach it.
To prevent such enormous errors in the future, the lines of communication between the Department of Justice, run by Republican J.B. Van Hollen, and the Department of Corrections, under the Democratic governor's office, need more efficient, functioning lines of communication. Only the Department of Justice had access to the two DNA databases in question, despite how closely the two departments should work together. Particularly in this post-Katrina world where the consequences of poor communication between government entities are obvious, it is inexcusable that these two units can't get together for such a simple public safety issue.
Doyle announced on Sep. 27 the creation of a task force that will be dedicated to tracking down the estimated 3,000 felons on probation or parole who do not have DNA samples with the Department of Justice. Members of the task force will include retired police officers. This is a step in the right direction, but it does not make up for the fact that the failure occurred in the first place.
Politics almost certainly played a part in this fiasco. Doyle and Van Hollen's offices are literally right next to each other in the Capitol. Yet the two men have severely differing political persuasions. This cannot be the most conducive environment for interdepartmental cooperation. Van Hollen in particular has shown that he has no reservations about letting a political squabble interfere with his duties, such as in his recent decision to not represent the state of Wisconsin in a lawsuit regarding its domestic-partnership registry.
Resolving the situation may prove tricky as the state government must protect the rights of people while trying to collect DNA samples. The task force cannot force people to submit to DNA sample collection unless they are a convicted felon, or on parole or probation.
According to the law, all convicted felons since 2000 are required to have DNA samples in the database. From now on, state government needs more cooperation and efficiency so those samples are collected properly before prisoners are released and Wisconsinites are unsure about their safety. Wisconsin shouldn't be crippled just because its government officials are avoiding talking to each other like 14-year-old girls fighting over who gets to date that football player in their Spanish class. This state's citizens deserve competent leadership and when events like this occur, it is difficult to believe we have that.
