Wisconsin v. Minnesota

Given the many demographic and cultural similarities between these midwestern neighbors, I’ve long been intrigued by how dramatically different the incarceration rates are in Wisconsin and Minnesota.  How is it that Wisconsin’s per capita incarceration is twice Minnesota’s?  My diligent research assistant Joe Gorndt has gathered some data to try to shed light on this problem.  First, here is the basic demographic data:

  Minnesota Wisconsin
Population (2009) 5.3 mm 5.7 mm
Age under 18 24.3% 23.6%
Age over 65 12.4% 13.2%
Over 25, HS diploma 91.1% 89.0%
Bachelor degree 31.2% 25.5%
Below poverty line 10.0% 11.1%
Foreign born 5.3% 3.6%
Unemployment 5.8% 6.1%

 

Not much to distinguish the states here.  The most notable difference seems to be the higher percentage of adults with college degrees in Minnesota, but this is hardly a dramatic difference and doesn’t seem likely to explain the imprisonment disparity.

Now take a look at the crime and criminal-justice statistics, courtesy of the National Institute of Corrections.

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Ratner: Even Osama Should Have Had Criminal Rights

Michael Ratner would have treated the pursuit of Osama bin Laden as a law enforcement matter, not as a matter of war. He would rather have seen bin Laden arrested, brought to trial, and given the rights of a criminal defendant than shot on the spot by Navy SEALS.

This almost certainly doesn’t put Ratner in the mainstream of American opinion, but it is consistent with what Ratner has advocated as president of the Center for Constitutional Rights, a New York-based non-profit organization, and as an attorney who has played key roles in defending the legal rights of prisoners at the military prison at Guantanamo Bay and in opposing interrogation techniques Ratner considers torture.

Ratner visited Eckstein Hall last week to speak to about 20 people at a lunch session of the American Constitution Society for Law and Policy, Milwaukee Lawyer Chapter.

Ratner realizes where the preponderance of American opinion lies on the killing on May 1 of bin Laden. “No one really cares whether he was lawfully killed or not,” he said. “People wanted him killed.”

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Major New Study on Recidivism Rates Shows Stability Over Time and Variation Among the States

The Pew Center on the States has released a major new empirical study on recidivism rates among released prisoners.  Bottom line: about 40 percent are returned to prison within three years of release.  About half are returned for violations of parole conditions, and half for new convictions.  Return-to-prison rates vary widely among the states, from 22.8 percent in Oregon to 61.2 percent in Minnesota.  Wisconsin’s 46-percent rate is a little above the national average.

The most recent comparable study was released by the United States Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Statistics almost a decade ago.  The BJS study tracked three-year recidivism rates of prisoners released in 1994.  The Pew Study followed cohorts in 1999 and 2004.  (The numbers presented above come from the 2004 cohort.)  Although the Pew methodology varied from BJS’s in several respects, both found return-to-prison rates of about 40 percent, suggesting a remarkable consistency in recidivism rates over time.

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