Note: Some of the statements quoted in this post may seem so preposterous that you may suspect that it’s all a parody. We assure you it’s not—we’re not making any of this up (except our own analysis at the end). Truth is indeed sometimes stranger than fiction!

Governor Jim Doyle of Wisconsin is utterly perplexed over a baffling mystery: the “racial disparity,” i.e. the preponderance of blacks, in the state’s jails.  He is so disturbed by this glaring injustice that he has created a “Governor’s Commission on Reducing Racial Disparities in the Wisconsin Justice System” to get to the bottom of the problem, and solve it.  The first of a planned series of public hearings for this purpose was held in Racine on Monday. 

“A racial disparity exists in the criminal justice system, but it isn’t easy to figure out why, or what to do about it,” laments the Racine Journal-Times.  But help is on the way: the governor’s new Commission is hard at work on its mission “to study why people of color are more likely to be arrested and imprisoned than their white counterparts, and to suggest improvements.”

Of course, the ignorant and unschooled might think that crime is what lands people in jail, and that therefore, the reason why any person or group might repeatedly find himself or themselves in the Graybar Hilton could be a persistent tendency toward criminal behavior. 

But the honorable members of the Commission are far too wise to fall prey to such unenlightened thinking.

Commission co-chair State Sen. Spencer Coggs, D-Milwaukee, sought to point his colleagues in the right direction by declaring that “the commission’s task is to look… in areas like infant mortality, education and the justice system.”

Not to be outdone, Sheriff Bob Carlson suggested that ”poverty” could be a major cause of the disparity:  “I believe a lot has to do with the fact [African Americans] have fewer resources to get out once they are incarcerated. Folks who end up in jail, often because they cannot meet the bond. If it’s $250 it might not seem like much, but if you don’t have 25 cents it might as well be $250 million.”

Other members weighed in with equally plausible explanations:

District Attorney Michael Nieskes said the complex issue before the commission is rooted in family instability, unemployment, low wages and educational backgrounds. He added that part of the problem is that jails and prisons have turned into a place for delivery of social services.

“(These are) things that the criminal justice system isn’t equipped to do very well,” he said. “They’re ending up in our jails and we’re trying to resolve issues because we’re the ones that have to deal with it.”

When community members took the microphones, they criticized a system that they feel improperly focuses on a particular group: young, black men.

Alfonso Gardner questioned why people are put in jail for things like driving with a revoked or suspended license, non-payment of child support and having sex with their underage girlfriends.

Like Nieskes, he said social issues play a part.

“My father has 17 children,” he said. “He had a job for 40 years. It’s not that they don’t want to pay, but it’s that they don’t have a job. Some of these things we need to look at in a practical way.”

Jameel Ghuari, director of the Bray Center, said institutional racism and white privilege is to blame.

“The No. 1 cause I thought of is we’ve suffered through a strong psychological effect of slavery,” he said. “We see ourselves through white society’s eyes. It creates an inferiority complex. … Discrimination and disparity, those in most cases relate to institutions, not individuals.”

Diane Lange, a county supervisor and public health nurse who works with teen mothers, said that she believes some blame rests on changes in the criminal statutes that criminalise more juvenile offenses and allow teenagers to be waived into adult court.

“The juvenile codes criminalised more activities,” she said. “That flies in the face of research that says (teenagers) are just not capable of making (sound) decisions. We are criminalizing too many of our 17-year-olds.”

Attorney Adrienne Moore, who works in the Racine State Public Defender’s Office, said there are ways that police and prosecutors could reduce the disparity, by having more flexibility with some offenses.

“If the police stop a young black male walking down the street and he gives a false name because he’s scared, then gives his real name, they could let that go,” she said. “The prosecutor could let that go.”

Wise words, all of them, from which many practical solutions to the “complex problem” can be garnered.  Police should pay far less attention to “young black men” and focus more on old white ladies.  When people do “things like driving with a revoked or suspended license, non-payment of child support and having sex with their underage girlfriends,” leave ‘em alone, for heaven’s sake!  Remember that “teenagers are just not capable of making sound decisions,” so when they rob, kill, or maim, just let them go–they’re only kids.  And above all, don’t forget that when an African American lands in criminal court, not he, but “institutional racism and white privilege is to blame.”  Be aware that he has most certainly “suffered through a strong psychological effect of slavery” that only ended a mere 142 years ago.  So let’s just stop putting all those African Americans in jail–and before long, the “racial disparity” in Wisconsin’s slammers will be a thing of the past.  What a simple solution to a “complex issue”!  Makes you wonder: why hasn’t anyone thought of it before? 

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