(The Center Square) – Wisconsin was second in the Midwest and 12th among all states in per capita correctional spending, according to a new wide-ranging report on Wisconsin’s criminal justice system.
Combined spending for the system and all of its functions between local governments in the state is between $4.5 and $6 billion annually, according to the study from the Wisconsin Policy Forum.
Law enforcement spending of $328 per resident in the local level was slightly below the national average but state spending on law enforcement was the lowest of any state in the country at $8 per resident, according to the report.
The next-lowest spending state was Florida with $32 per resident while the average in the country was $60 per resident. There were 22,801 adults in state prisons in 2024, exceeding the 17,648 capacity that the facilities were designed to house.
“Wisconsin’s correctional system carries significant financial and human costs,” the report concluded. “State and local spending on corrections ranked 12th among the states in 2022, and Wisconsin had the highest cost per capita in 2021 to reincarcerate people for violations of community supervision conditions, although these reincarcerations have decreased in recent years.
“Corrections costs are likely to increase both from the significant wage hikes for prison staff that were approved by the Legislature in 2023 to combat persistent understaffing, and from growing medical costs to care for the aging prison population.”
The state also has seen the number of individuals incarcerated whose most serious offense was a violent crime rise between 2000 and 2023 and, over that same time, the number incarcerated who were found guilty of intoxicated driving has quadrupled.
The report reasoned that increase was the result of increased penalties with longer prison stays along with more convictions for those offenses.
“While the overall number of court cases decreased during our period of study, we also observed a rise in the number of cases involving at least one felony across most crime categories,” the report stated. “These trends have contributed to Wisconsin’s prison and community supervision rates remaining high even as overall crime rates fell between 2019 and 2023, including an ongoing decline in property crimes.”
