Two-thirds of Wisconsin voters support truth in sentencing, the 1998 law that abolished parole in the state and required prisoners to serve the full term of their sentences.\u00a0 At the same time, a majority of Wisconsin voters (54.5 percent) agreed that once a prisoner serves half of his term, he should be released and given a less costly form of punishment if he can demonstrate that he is no longer a threat to society.\u00a0 These seemingly inconsistent opinions point to complex, mixed feelings about sentencing policy in the state.<\/p>\n
The numbers come from the\u00a0Marquette Law School Poll, which earlier this week released the\u00a0results of its latest survey<\/a>\u00a0of Wisconsin voters regarding politics and public policy.\u00a0 This edition of the poll included a rich array of questions relating to truth in sentencing.\u00a0 (Full disclosure: I collaborated in the design of these questions with Poll Director Charles Franklin and Professor Darren Wheelock of the Marquette Social and Cultural Sciences Department.)<\/p>\n The poll results this year were remarkably consistent with\u00a0results from a year ago<\/a>, when some of the same questions were posed.\u00a0 Last July, 63% supported truth in sentencing, while 55% supported release opportunities at the half-way mark.\u00a0 An even more decisive two-thirds majority supported awarding credits toward early release to\u00a0recognize prisoners\u2019 rehabilitative accomplishments, which also violates truth in sentencing (at least in the particularly hard-line way in which it was adopted in Wisconsin).<\/p>\n What gives? \u00a0<\/p>\n Darren and I will be undertaking a more systematic analysis of the data, but, for now, I can highlight a few ideas that emerge from responses to other questions in this month\u2019s poll.<\/p>\n One important source of complexity in this area is that the public seems uncertain and divided over whether sentencing policies should be evaluated based on instrumental or symbolic considerations.\u00a0 An instrumentally good sentencing policy is one that\u00a0enhances public safety\u00a0in a cost-effective way.\u00a0 A symbolically good sentencing policy is one that expresses an ideal or value with which we would like to be associated.<\/p>\n When we asked respondents whether prisoners should be released at the half-way mark and given a less costly form of punishment if they can demonstrate they are no longer a threat, we were implicitly inviting our respondents to think in instrumental terms \u2014 the ideas of cost and safety figure centrally in the wording of the question.<\/p>\n But, when we asked about truth in sentencing, we\u00a0moved respondents\u00a0to\u00a0a much more symbolically rich\u00a0terrain.\u00a0 After all, when we think about truth-telling, we often think of it as a virtue in its own right and without regard to its consequences \u2014 it\u2019s simply the \u201cright thing to do.\u201d<\/p>\n And there is some indication in the poll results that TIS may be valued more on symbolic than instrumental grounds: while nearly three-quarters of respondents said that TIS \u201csends a message that society will not tolerate crime,\u201d a smaller number (57.4%) agreed that TIS \u201chelps to reduce crime and make Wisconsin safer.\u201d\u00a0 Indeed, the number of respondents who support TIS actually exceeded the number who felt that TIS has public-safety benefits, which presumably indicates that some of the support for TIS is\u00a0purely<\/em>\u00a0symbolic in character.<\/p>\n These are similar to last year\u2019s findings, which also included majority support for the proposition that \u201ceven if [TIS] does not reduce crime, it would still be the right thing to do.\u201d<\/p>\n