5-20-15 growing female inmate population

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — The Legislature’s budget committee has approved spending an additional $5 million above previous estimates to pay for housing inmates in the state prison system.  The committee’s action Tuesday was needed because the prison population growth estimates in Gov. Scott Walker’s budget released in February are already outdated for both the state’s female and male prison populations.  The Legislative Fiscal Bureau says the state will have to house about 150 more female prisoners and about 800 more male prisoners over the two-year budget than Walker forecast.  The committee approved converting beds at the Sturtevant Transitional Facility for use by long-term male prisoners and contracting for additional beds elsewhere. It did not approve opening a new wing at the women’s prison in Taycheedah for housing female inmates at a vacant juvenile prison.  A Democratic member of the legislature’s Jt. Finance committee says while building more prison cells may be necessary it  isn’t the long term  answer to reversing a growing population of women prison inmates.  After four years of decline the female inmate population has grown each year since 2012.    State senator Lena Taylor of Milwaukee says the state has to think in terms of prevention and treatment first.  “We know if we are not doing the things on the preventative end correctly, if we’re not making sure that people are prepared when they come out to re-enter into the community, if we are not making sure that people have the resources or the services on the ground when they are in community corrections, that all of those things will lead to the same thing which is higher incarceration rates,”  Taylor told AM 1170 WFDL’s Between the Lines program.