New Approach for Prevention Over Incarceration
Invest on the front end and avoid huge costs on the back end
Last week (Tuesday, May 9) the Common Council passed a resolution encouraging leaders in the State Legislature to consider a different approach to public safety. The approved package of recommendations (attached) calls for the Legislature to consider going beyond reforms to the juvenile justice system and increasing penalties for certain crimes. It calls on our state legislators to also make investments on the front end so that more Wisconsin citizens can not only avoid incarceration, but can live a life without contact with the corrections system.
I co-sponsored the legislation because I believe strongly that we need to change our focus to prevention and key investments in our fellow citizens and neighbors, and especially in our children. I will go to Madison to testify at the Capitol for our package because I believe strongly that we need to proactively invest in quality education including early childhood education, and trauma informed care. We need to continue the efforts to connect underserved and underemployed individuals with better living wage jobs that can provide hope while helping to stabilize families and neighborhoods.
I believe that individuals who commit crimes need to be sanctioned, but I also believe we need to do a much better job preventing the conditions and/or paths that lead people to consider poor choices in the first place.
NOTE: This press release was submitted to Urban Milwaukee and was not written by an Urban Milwaukee writer. It has not been verified for its accuracy or completeness.
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