From fellow worker at WSPF (Boscobel)
Wisconsin leads the nation in terms of racial disparity in the
prison system, according to a study by the Employment and
Training Institute at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
The state’s 16.5 per 100 incarceration rate for black males
has now doubled the national average since 2016. The May
2016 study found that Wisconsin is four points higher than the
state with the second highest disparity rates (Oklahoma,
12.8%), and three points higher than New York’s (15.9%).
Most of the offenses are drug-related and gang-related, and
two-thirds of the prisoners are from six ZIP codes
representing the poorest neighborhoods in Milwaukee. The
hardest hit of those areas are 53209 and 53210 on the North
Side and the East Side. The study found that nearly 7,000
men in these neighborhoods were in prison or are in prison
between 2000, 2010 and 2015. Legislators have long known
that racial profiling is a major problem in the state. Former
Gov. Tommy Thompson established a task force on racial
profiling in 1999, which released a report in 2000. His
successor, Gov. Jim Doyle, commissioned another report in
2008, which made dozens of recommendations, including
better data tracking and sharing, education on cultural
competency, alternative justice programs, and improved
methods to track progress related to racial disparities. Though
drugs abuse were mentioned frequently as areas to be
addressed, neither report recommended changes in drugrelated
or gang-related drug laws.