Unlike most other states, Wisconsin does not recognize prisoners\u2019 good behavior with credits toward accelerated release. \u00a0Wisconsin had such a \u201cgood time\u201d program for well over a century, but eliminated it as part of the policy changes in the 1980s and 1990s that collectively left the state unusually \u2014 perhaps even uniquely \u2014 inflexible in its terms of imprisonment. \u00a0I\u2019ve been researching the history of good time in Wisconsin in connection with a forthcoming law review article.<\/p>\n
Wisconsin adopted its first good time law in 1860, which placed it among the first states to embrace this new device for improving prison discipline. \u00a0Twenty years later, in 1880, the Legislature expanded good time and restructured the program in the form it would retain for about a century. \u00a0In the first year of imprisonment, an inmate could earn one month of credit for good behavior; in the second, two months; in the third, three; and so forth. \u00a0Credits maxed out at six months per year. \u00a0 A model prisoner with a ten-year term, for instance, might earn enough credits to knock off nearly three years from the time served.<\/p>\n
In Wisconsin and elsewhere, good time has had a distinct history, structure, and purpose from parole. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n While good time credits accrue in a more-or-less automatic way based on a prisoner\u2019s disciplinary record, parole decisions are discretionary. \u00a0In theory, the paroling authority releases an inmate when he has been rehabilitated. \u00a0Of course, disciplinary records have always been part of the parole calculus, but other considerations are also likely to come into play.<\/p>\n A later innovation than good time, parole was first implemented in the United States in 1876. \u00a0Once again, Wisconsin was a relatively early adopter, passing its first parole law in 1889.<\/p>\n Wisconsin eliminated good time in 1984, as part of a broader effort to tighten up sentencing and corrections law. \u00a0Sentencing guidelines were adopted in the same year, as were new restrictions on parole discretion.<\/p>\n Even after 1984, though, Wisconsin retained considerable flexibility with release dates. Prisoners could be paroled as early as the one-quarter mark of their sentences, and had to be paroled by the two-thirds mark. \u00a0Despite the loss of good time, the system retained very robust mechanisms for encouraging and recognizing the good behavior and rehabilitative efforts of inmates.<\/p>\n A series of laws over the ensuing decade cut back on parole in a variety of small ways, but the big change came with the 1998 \u201ctruth in sentencing\u201d law, which wholly eliminated discretionary parole.<\/p>\n Many other states adopted TIS laws in the 1990s, but Wisconsin was unusual in eliminating nearly all flexibility with release dates. \u00a0Typically, other states retained either good time, or a truncated version of parole, or both. \u00a0The federal TIS grant program, which provided financial incentives for states to adopt TIS laws, included an 85% benchmark for violent offenders; in the program, states could still knock off up to 15% from prison terms for such offenders based on good time.<\/p>\n By 1998, parole had (fairly or not) become very politically controversial in Wisconsin, and its total elimination is understandable. \u00a0More curious was the failure to reinstate good time. \u00a0Parole was criticized as unpredictable and (often granted at about the half-way mark of the sentence) overly generous. \u00a0Good time functions in a more transparent manner and typically offers a much smaller reduction in prison terms; the norm among other states seems to be a maximum discount in the range of 25% to 40%, with violent offenders, per the federal grant program, often limited to a 15% discount.<\/p>\n Given the elimination of parole, I view it as unfortunate that Wisconsin did not reinstate good time. \u00a0I am sympathetic to the view that maintaining both systems, parole and good time, creates too much uncertainty around release dates. \u00a0However, most states have found it helpful to retain at least one of the two systems as a way to promote institutional discipline and rehabilitative effort. \u00a0This also seems consistent with the weight of expert opinion. \u00a0The American Law Institute, for instance, has included good time in its pending revisions to the sentencing sections of the Model Penal Code. \u00a0Moreover, rigorous empirical studies in two other states (Florida and North Carolina) provide support for the commonly expressed view of corrections professionals that cutting back on good time increases disciplinary infractions.<\/p>\n As some readers may know, good time (rechristened as \u201cpositive adjustment time\u201d) did make a temporary comeback in Wisconsin in 2009. \u00a0This was one part of a much larger package of reforms that reintroduced quite a bit more flexibility into prison release dates. \u00a0Pretty much the whole package was then repealed in 2011. \u00a0The criticisms of the 2009 reforms closely tracked the criticisms of parole that had been made in the 1990s. \u00a0However, as discussed above, good time and parole are different in many respects, and a rejection of one does not necessarily require a rejection of the other.<\/p>\n Results of the Marquette Law School Poll suggest that a good time program might be quite popular with voters. \u00a0The\u00a0July 2012 Poll<\/a>\u00a0found that two-thirds of Wisconsin voters support recognizing prisoners\u2019 rehabilitative accomplishments by awarding credits towards early release. \u00a0Meanwhile, in the\u00a0July 2013 Poll<\/a>, more than 88% of Wisconsin voters said that it was at least somewhat important to take into account prisoners\u2019 disciplinary records in making early release decision.<\/p>\n Wisconsin\u2019s recent creation of two special Legislative Council committees on criminal-justice issues suggests that momentum might be building in the state for significant reforms to the get-tough arrangements that dominated the legislative agenda in the 1990s. \u00a0These developments in Wisconsin seem to echo a broader, national conversation about mass incarceration that has been taking shape in recent years. \u00a0The national conversation is strikingly bipartisan, with Tea Party libertarians and fiscal conservatives finding common ground with liberal critics of get-tough policies. \u00a0As reforms are considered in Wisconsin, I hope that good time will be on the table.<\/p>\n Cross posted at Life Sentences.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Unlike most other states, Wisconsin does not recognize prisoners\u2019 good behavior with credits toward accelerated release. \u00a0Wisconsin had such a \u201cgood time\u201d program for well over a century, but eliminated it as part of the policy changes in the 1980s and 1990s that collectively left the state unusually \u2014 perhaps even uniquely \u2014 inflexible in 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