Coward Nation?

Governor Doyle was a big proponent of TIS, which is very costly for the people of Wisconsin.  Now he admits that some people really don’t need to do their entire sentence.  Really?  It took the collapse of our economy to make him realize this?  Taxpayers have been spending millions to keep people locked up, while tuition at U.W. campuses was exploding every year.  Families have been struggling and suffering as their loved ones remained locked up, simply to satisfy the whim of a bunch of politicians, judges and prosecutors who wanted to look tough?

Sheriff Clarke of Milwaukee, and some other law enforcement officials, were critical of Doyle’s plan to release these prisoners.  Their argument was that public safety should not take a back-seat to budgetary issues.  They are correct that Doyle’s failure to address the need for prison reform has created a tremendous risk to public safety.  Had Doyle not been so politically minded, he could have opened up the dialogue on prison reforms long ago.  In the midst of a failing economy, where the temptation to revert back to criminal activities has substantially increased due to the difficult job market, Doyle wants to dump thousands of unprepared prisoners onto the streets.

What’s coming is even worse than I expected when I wrote the Essays.  Economic collapse was inevitable, but not of this magnitude.  What’s clear, and what politicians won’t prepare you for, is that in the summer of 2009, millions of Americans will run out of their unemployment checks.  At the same time, we will have the usual higher summer gas prices, which also raises the price of everything else.  This is one reason many citizens have taken the initiative to buy their own guns.  The conditions are ripe for a crime explosion.  What efforts are our politicians making for this threat to personal security?  They’re going to release a bunch of angry and frustrated prisoners, who should have been released years ago, to make room for new ones.

Our states are like ships that nobody wants to steer, because then there’s accountability if something goes wrong. So, we’re just drifting to wherever the current takes us.  As every sailor knows, that’s how you run aground.  Now, everyone is calling the Federal Government to send tugboats, but there aren’t going to be enough.  While George W. Bush was the Incompetent in Chief, he can’t be blamed for everything.  There was plenty of incompetence at the state level.  Very few states in America have had the benefit of leadership over the last twenty years.  Obama would be wise to shake some of these incompetents from his coattails.

If solutions to our crime problem, like TIS, only work when the economy is doing well, we’re in big trouble.  It’s going to be years before our economy gets straightened out, and Governors nation wide need to be honest about the failure of the whole tough on crime crusade of the mouth.  It’s not too late for prison reforms, but unlike Doyle’s proposal, an honest acknowledgment of failure must be made.