Clarke Wants More Recidivism From Criminals

In what could be categorized in the "Yeah. I don't get it either," slot, Milwaukee County David Clarke is at it again.

Now he wants to cut way back on the Community Justice Resource Center, a program that helps inmates from the House of Correction, or as Clarke calls it, Community Correctional Facility - South, be able to successfully reintegrate into the community. Or as the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel put it in their article on Clarke's publicity stunt:

It provides help to about 400 inmates a year in applying for jobs, taking high school equivalency classes and doing community service projects. The sheriff said he could run the resource center for half the current cost and is calling for stricter accountability standards. He wants the program scaled back and limited to non-violent offenders, preferably those accused or convicted of minor crimes only.

Clarke says he wants to scale it back because there are too many "dangerous criminals" in the program that increase the risk to public safety, even though he couldn't cite one example of there being a problem.

Clarke is temporarily backing down from his plans, due to a lot of threats of contempt of court charges being thrown at him, and due to Chief Justice Jeffrey Kremers, who is a long time supporter of the program.

In the MJS article, Clarke tries to claim that the program isn't successful, but the fact come back to bite him in the rump:

Clarke said figures kept by his office show high recidivism rates for participants in the community program. Using samples of 100 people who completed the program each year, Clarke found 21% from 2008 had been convicted of new crimes, 18% from 2007 and 33% from 2006.

McNally said that was evidence of success, not failure. Many studies show 60% or more of inmates released directly to the community without supervision in community programs re-offend.

Apparently, Sheriff Clarke is afraid that if there isn't enough crime, he won't be able to do as much grandstanding.