In keeping with his tough-on-crime reputation, Gov. Scott Walker is hoping to change the way parole is determined in Wisconsin.
The state currently has eight employees that determine whether inmates receive parole, but a proposal in Walker’s 2017-’19 biennial budget would drastically downsize the system, keeping just one employee.
The current Parole Commission is a stand-alone agency, but the proposal would eliminate its entire budget, making the Department of Corrections responsible for paying the sole employee’s salary.
The state’s parole system handles about 3,000 inmates who are subject to rules that were in place before Wisconsin implemented a truth in sentencing law in 2000. This law effectively eliminated parole for all inmates sentenced after it went into effect.
Walker was a staunch supporter of truth in sentencing as a state legislator in the 1990s.
Tristan Cook, a spokesperson for the Department of Corrections, said that even under the proposal, the agency will still be able to keep up with parole requests.
"The proposal will maintain the integrity of the parole function while saving taxpayer dollars and accounting for workload changes,” Cook said. “DOC anticipates that the proposal will continue prompt reviews of parole-eligible inmates.”
But Stan Stojkovic, a professor at UW-Milwaukee and an expert on prison and parole issues, says the proposal shows Walker’s “consistent disregard for anything rational in the practice of parole.”
“The current change proposed by Gov. Walker will slow the process of prisoners being released from prison even more, and thereby costing the taxpayers more to imprison them,” Stojkovic told The Daily Cardinal. “For all intents and purposes, Gov. Walker has used his office to advance narrow political ambitions over the interests of communities.”
There is currently no backlog of parole-eligible inmates waiting for hearings.
