Phil Wilayto
October 3, 2000

Wisconsin's Exploding Prison Population: The Bradley Connection

MILWAUKEE Wisconsin, which has emerged as a national leader in the areas of reactionary welfare and education "reform," can now claim a new area for innovative social policy: incarceration.

In the last five years, the number of people being held in the Wisconsin state prison system has doubled, from 10,551 to 20,555. 1 Last year, the increase was the highest of any state in the country. These figures came out before "Truth in Sentencing" laws (elimination of parole) were enacted, and don't include the thousands of prisoners in local jails.

Also in the last five years, the number of people under probation, parole or electronic monitoring ("intensive sanctions") has doubled, from 31,706 to 63,840. 1 As with every other social issue, race and gender have played central roles.

African Americans make up only 5% of the state population, but 48% of state prisoners. 2 That means Wisconsin is now imprisoning Blacks at over twice the national average. Latinos, with 1.9% of the population, make up over 6% of the prisoners. 2

As of June 1999, there were 1,271 women in the state system, making up 6% of inmates. 3 This is also a sharp increase over past years.

[Note: As of Sept. 22, 2000, the total number of state prisoners had dropped to 20,294, but the number of women had shot up 12% to 1,425 or 7% of the total, according to the State Department of Corrections.] Drastic changes in social policy don't happen without planning. Interested parties sit down, conduct analysis, write reports, develop programs and promote the changes they favor. This was certainly true for welfare and education reform, and it's true for prisons as well.

The Wisconsin Policy Research Institute

The Wisconsin Policy Research Institute (WPRI) is located in a professional office park on Port Washington Road, a few miles north of Milwaukee. From the outside it doesn't look like one of the best-funded conservative think tanks in the country, but it is.

In 1997, the Washington, D.C.-based National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy published a list of 100 conservative organizations, think tanks, institutes and publications that had received the most funding from the 12 largest right wing foundations for the years 1992 to 1994. The first five were well known: the Heritage Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute, the Free Congress Research and Education Foundation, the Cato Institute and Citizens for a Sound Economy.

Number Six - out of 100 - was the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute. Between '92 and '94, the WPRI received nine grants totaling $3,372,500.00. That was the largest amount given any state conservative think tank, and indicates how important Wisconsin is to the national conservative movement. 4 From its beginning in 1987 through 1998, the Institute received 36 grants totaling $5,158,890 from the John M. Olin and Lynde and Harry Bradley foundations, most of it from Bradley. 5

According to its web site (www.wpri.org), the WPRI is "a not-for-profit institute established to study public-policy issues affecting the state of Wisconsin... The Institute's agenda encompasses the following issues: Education, welfare and social services, criminal justice, taxes and spending, and economic development."

The Institute also conducts regular public-opinion polls that are "disseminated through the media and are made available to the general public and the legislative and executive branches of state government."

For a flavor of the Institute's politics, here's a sample of some recent reports and articles:

"Why College Is Too Cheap," by J. Issac Brannon;

"Turning Back the Tide of Political Correctness," by Thomas W. Still;

"Another Look at Tolling Wisconsin Interstates," by Robert W. Poole, Jr.;

"Beyond Smoke and Mirrors: A Critical Look at Smaller Class Sizes," by Thomas Hruz;

and

"Political Manipulation of Wisconsin's Students: Environmental Education in Action," by Michael Sanera.

Besides being well funded, the Institute is well connected. In 1995, its nine-member board of directors included Michael Grebe, chairman and CEO of the state's largest law firm, Foley and Lardner. Grebe is a member of the Republican National Committee and a former president of the University of Wisconsin Board of Regents. He's also a member of the Bradley board of directors.

Sheldon Lubar is a Milwaukee venture capitalist, former member of the UW Board of Regents and a former member of the Bradley board. Sam Orr, Jr, listed as a 1995 Institute board member, is the current president of the UW board of regents. In fact, the last six presidents of the UW board have all been board members of the WPRI.

Wisconsin as a Social Laboratory

The Institute's principle sponsor, the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, is the largest, richest and most influential of the rightwing foundations in the U.S. With $700 million in assets, Bradley has helped overturn statewide affirmative action programs in Texas, California and Washington. A million dollars of Bradley money funded the notoriously racist book The Bell Curve. Bradley helps to underwrite a staggering number of right-wing organizations, including the Heritage Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute and the Manhattan Institute.

In Wisconsin, Bradley is by far the largest foundation of any kind, with close ties to the governor and the Republican Party. With its deep pockets and influential political ties, it has been able to use the state as a kind of laboratory for developing prototypes for conservative public policy initiatives.

In the area of welfare reform, Bradley funded the Hudson Institute of Indianapolis to open an office in Madison, an effort that resulted in the development of W-2. Bell Curve co-author Charles Murray was actually brought in as a consultant by the W-2 development task force. In education, Bradley has bankrolled the school voucher movement in Milwaukee, funding voucher schools, pro-voucher "community" groups, and public spokespersons; defending the program in court; and promoting the program nationally.

Bradley's role in the area of prison policy has been less well known. But working through the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute, it has sponsored research, articles and reports that have been used to justify major changes in state prison policy, including building more prisons.

Recent WPRI articles and reports dealing with the criminal justice system include:

"Outstanding Warrants in Milwaukee County: Fugitives From The Justice System," by Jean M. White;

"Private Prison-Industry Enterprises: Is it an Idea Whose Time Has Come (Again)?," by Sammis White;

"The Truth About Sentencing in Wisconsin: Plea Bargaining, Punishment, and the Public Interest," by George A. Mitchell and David Dodenhoff;

and

"Privatizing Parole and Probation in Wisconsin: The Path to Fewer Prisons," by George Mitchell.

The last article, written by George Mitchell, appeared in April of 1999. Back in 1995, when there were only half as many state prisoners as there are today, Mitchell had another concern: that there weren't enough prisons. A longtime literary advocate for the Bradley Foundation, Mitchell ran a management firm that helped build the Milwaukee County Jail. 6 In 1990 he directed a team of prison and architectural consultants that produced a 10-year master plan for the state's prison system. 7 He's also a member of the Governor's Task Force on Sentencing and Corrections, a committee charged with coming up with new proposals. In 1996 he wrote a report for the WPRI that called for having private companies design, build and operate new prisons for the state. 8

A False Argument to Justify Incarceration

In August of '95 the Institute published Mitchell's report "Prison Works," which argued that Wisconsin had to start building a lot more prisons or face the prospect of turning loose thousands of dangerous criminals.

Looks like somebody read his report.

Mitchell argued that (1) the rise in the crime rate from 1960 to 1979 was a result of not sending enough people to prison; (2) the crime rate fell after 1980 in part because of changing demographics, but more because a lot more people were sent to prison; (3) due to an expected rise in the number of 18-24 year olds, we could expect another rise in crime; and (4) unless the state embarked on a huge prison building project, large numbers of violent criminals would have to be turned loose on the public.

Concerning the rise in crime in the 60's and 70's, Mitchell never mentions the long-term effects of the Vietnam War, or subsequent U.S. wars. (At one point after Vietnam, one-third of all prisoners were Vietnam-era veterans.) He doesn't mention the large-scale introduction of hard drugs into communities of color after the urban rebellions of 1968, or the effect of the massive factory shutdowns and layoffs that began in the mid 70's.

Mitchell also mixes up crime categories so it sounds like everyone in prison is a violent repeat offender. There's no analysis of drug or alcohol addiction as a factor in crime, or how a phony "war on drugs" was selectively targeted against communities of color, in particular the youth.

In fact, he never mentions race at all, neither as a factor in arrests, convictions, nor incarceration. And he never mentions class, either as a factor in economic crimes of survival, or as a factor in being able to avoid arrest, conviction and imprisonment.

Expanding Prisons Mean Exploding Profits

Another thing never mentioned by Mitchell, the WPRI or the governor, is that there are individuals, towns and corporations who stand to gain handsomely from an exploding prison population: construction and supply companies; rural areas hungry for jobs; private corporations anxious to exploit prison labor and privatize parole, probation and the prisons themselves. And there is the need of the economic system itself to imprison large numbers of young workers, particularly people of color, whom it no longer needs for industrial production - at least on the outside.

The role of the Bradley Foundation and the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute is to promote the interests of these individuals, companies and corporations. The result is the massive incarceration of our young people and a strengthening of the repressive apparatus of government. Sorry, Pogo, but we have seen the enemy, and it aint us.

This article first appeared in the August 2000 issue of Money, Education and Prisons, publication of The Task Force on Money, Education and Prisons, Madison, WI.

Phil Wilayto can be contacted c/o A Job is a Right Campaign, PO Box 06053, Milwaukee, WI 53206. Ph: 414.374.1034; Fax: 414.372.7624; email: ajrc@execpc.com.

For more information on the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute or the Bradley Foundation, contact:

Wisconsin Policy Research Institute
P.O. Box 487 Thiensville, WI 53092
Phone: 262-241-0514; Fax: 262-241-0774;
http://www.wpri.org/

The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation
PO Box 510860, Milwaukee, WI 53203-0153
Phone: 414-291-9915; Fax: 414-291-9991;
http://www.bradleyfdn.org/

1 1995 figure from "Offenders Under Control on April 21, 1995", The Wisconsin Department of Corrections. June 30, 2000 figure from Sister Ester Heffernan, PhD, professor of criminal justice at Edgewood College, Madison, WI. Of the 20,555 state prisoners on June 30, 5,649 were contracted out to private prisons

2 U.S. Census figures from 1990.

3 From Pam Oliver, PhD, professor of sociology, University of Wisconsin at Madison. Figure does not include prisoners being held in state mental institutions.

4 "Moving a Public Policy Agenda: The Strategic Philanthropy of Conservative Foundations"; National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy, Washington, D.C., 1997.

5 Media Transparency web site: www.mediatransparency.org

6 Milwaukee Business Journal, April 10, 1989.

7 Introduction to "Prison Works" by George Mitchell, Wisconsin Policy

Research Institute, August, 1995.

8 Milwaukee Business Journal, , January 6, 1997.