Thousands more people could be sent back to prison each year under a bill advancing in Wisconsin

Thousands of additional people could be sent back to prison each year if a bill advancing in Wisconsin becomes law.

Currently, there are more than 60,000 people being monitored in Wisconsin under what’s known as community supervision.

That means they’ve been sentenced to probation as an alternative to spending time behind bars, or they’re under parole or extended supervision after their prison sentence has been completed.

And, each year, thousands of people are sent back to prison if they’re found to have violated the conditions of their community supervision, through what’s called revocation.

Bill would make revocation mandatory after someone’s charged with new offense

A GOP-backed proposal would alter that revocation process, leading to concerns about how the changes could further increase Wisconsin’s ballooning prison population.

Currently, agents with Wisconsin’s Department of Corrections have some flexibility about whether to ask a judge to revoke someone’s probation, parole or extended supervision.

But, under the bill which cleared Wisconsin’s Republican-controlled Assembly last week, the DOC would be required to recommend revocation if someone’s charged with a new crime while out on release.

GOP sponsors say their goal is targeting repeat offenders

State Rep. Brent Jacobson, a lead sponsor of the proposal, said the goal is protecting public safety.

“I’m all for giving convicted criminals the chance to reintegrate into our communities,” the Mosinee Republican said in a committee hearing earlier this month. “However, it is unacceptable to give repeat criminals the opportunity to continue to put our families and neighbors at risk again and again without facing consequences.”

The Wisconsin Chiefs of Police Association and the Milwaukee Police Association testified in favor of the legislation.

Meanwhile, the American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin, the Wisconsin Public Defender’s office and a group called Ex-Incarcerated People Organizing of Wisconsin are among those opposing the bill.

Wisconsin DOC opposes the legislation

Wisconsin’s Department of Corrections has also come out against the proposal.

DOC leaders say the bill would take away agents’ discretion about whether to recommend revocation based on someone’s risk level.

A fiscal estimate provided by the DOC suggested that changes could eventually increase Wisconsin’s prison population by roughly 4,600 people, resulting in a $245.7 million increase to annual operational costs.

The bill’s sponsors have pointed out that, while it does make a revocation recommendation mandatory in many cases, a recommendation doesn’t mean someone’s community supervision will automatically be yanked away.

Under the bill, an administrative law judge would still have the final say about whether someone should be revoked and sent back to prison.

As it currently stands in Wisconsin, a recommendation from the DOC is needed to trigger that administrative law hearing. The bill’s backers say their goal is to ensure revocation is at least considered by a judge.

“This legislation simply ensures that when a convicted criminal is charged with another crime, their case is heard in court,” Jacobson said.

How much would Wisconsin’s prison population increase?

But critics point out that recommendations from DOC agents have been overwhelmingly likely to lead to a judge revoking community supervision.

In 2018, judges sided with DOC agents 87 percent of the time in agreeing to revoke community supervision based on the department’s recommendation.

That’s according to information first prepared by the DOC in a prior legislative session, when a similar bill was introduced but died before becoming law.

DOC officials have acknowledged the changes could lead to judges being somewhat less likely to agree with DOC recommendations, since they’ll be operating with the knowledge that such recommendations were mandated by law. The department’s latest fiscal estimate, for instance, is calculated under the assumption that bill could lead to judges granting revocation in 47 percent of instances that are recommended by the DOC.

Marquette University Law Professor Michael O’Hear says it’s clear the bill would increase Wisconsin’s prison population, even if not clear by exactly how much.

There are currently more than 23,000 people locked up in the state’s prisons, and that number has more than tripled since 1990.

“(Revocations) play a large role in the size of the prison population at any given point in time,” said O’Hear, who studies sentencing and criminal punishment. “We actually in the state have a very large population of people who are on on supervision. It’s about three times larger than the number of people who are in prison.”

In 2024, over 8,000 people were admitted to Wisconsin prisons, and about 60 percent of those admissions involved revocations, according to DOC data.

Many of those revocations happened because someone violated rules of community supervision — things like failing to show up for an appointment. But other revocations resulted from someone being charged with a new crime.

Sentencing expert worries changes could harm public safety

O’Hear said he’s “skeptical” the proposed legislation would improve public safety.

He noted the bill is based on someone being charged with a crime rather than convicted.

“A charge could be filed on what is called probable cause in the law, which is a very low level of proof,” he said. “It may be that a lot of those charges are not well founded, and yet they’re being given this important legal significance under the statute.”

Under current policies, DOC agents are supposed to decide whether to recommend revocation using a matrix that’s designed to assess someone’s risk to the public.

But O’Hear said he’s concerned about the bill making a revocation recommendation mandatory even if someone’s charged with a low-level offense like disorderly conduct.

“If DOC can’t use the research-based system that they’re currently using, that suggests that revocation will be used in a much cruder fashion, with the revocation and prison resources not really targeting the people who are at highest risk,” O’Hear said.

In many cases, O’Hear says it can be counterproductive to send someone back to prison just as they’re starting to rebuild their life by finding a job and repairing relationships.

“There’s a lot of research that indicates that incarceration, especially for low risk individuals, can actually increase their risk,” O’Hear said.

The proposal still needs approval from Wisconsin’s Republican-controlled Senate. The office of Democratic Gov. Tony Evers did not respond to a question about whether Evers would veto the bill if it gets to his desk.

Evers has campaigned on a promise of reducing Wisconsin’s prison population. He also included a goal of decreasing revocations in his budget proposal for the next fiscal year.