The Adverse Impact of Truth in Sentencing on Wisconsin’s Efforts to Deal with Low Level Drug Offenders

Abstract

In 1998, Wisconsin passed a so-called Truth in Sentencing (“TIS”) law. This paper explores how the TIS law come to be enacted and what effect it has had, particularly on low level drug offenders. The paper concludes that the law was passed largely to advance the career ambitions of a number of Wisconsin political figures and that it has had an extremely harmful impact on the state and on its capacity to deal effectively with low level drug offenders. TIS has led to an enormous increase in the costs of Wisconsin’s correctional system and has had a particularly harsh impact on the African-American community concentrated in Milwaukee.

Keywords: Wisconsin, TIS, Truth in Sentencing, drugs, drug offenders, Milwaukee, sentencing