Bills aim to curb teen crime

More would be sent to prison

MADISON - Prompted by a series of recent carjackings by teenagers, a pair of suburban Milwaukee lawmakers are pushing bills to toughen penalties on violent offenders and send more teenagers to a state prison under federal investigation.

Rep. Joe Sanfelippo (R-West Allis) said he is introducing the bills after working for a year and a half on an issue he hears about from more than one in two of the constituents he contacts.

Sanfelippo contended that responding to carjackings in Milwaukee and suburbs like West Allis is a separate issue from how well Lincoln Hills School for Boys and Copper Lake School for Girls are ensuring teenage offenders don’t commit new crimes. The twin prisons north of Wausau are under scrutiny from the FBI for alleged criminal and civil rights abuses of their juvenile inmates.

“Making sure that violent habitual offenders are no longer freely walking the streets and preying on innocent victims, regardless of where they are sent to serve a sentence, is going to be better for the public safety and qual-

ity of life for my constituents and our neighborhoods,” Sanfelippo said in an interview.

In the first 10 months of 2016, more than 80 teenagers were arrested for armed carjackings, according to Milwaukee police data. That is a sharp increase from previous years.

Overall, there were 464 carjackings in the city of Milwaukee in 2016, down 9% from the 2015 level of 512 but still up sharply from 2014, when there were 354, according to police statistics.

Sanfelippo and his cosponsor, Sen. Leah Vukmir (R-Wauwatosa), are prominent GOP lawmakers taking on an issue that has hit a nerve among suburban voters. That gives their bills a very good chance at passing the Republican Legislature, though key state leaders like Gov. Scott Walker have yet to weigh in on the legislation.

The measures worry Rep. Evan Goyke (D-Milwaukee), a former public defender who argues that the bills will cost taxpayers by locking up more offenders — both violent and nonviolent — without cutting money elsewhere in the prison system. In addition, the bills’ sponsors aren’t offering evidence that spending the money will make the public safer in the long run, he said.

Goyke said many Democratic and Republican states are looking for ways to reduce both crime and incarceration rates by using data and research. But Wisconsin, he said, seems poised to double down on a more than $1 billion a year prison system without looking at evidence on how effective it is at keeping the public safe.

A Journal Sentinel investigation last month found that Walker and other officials missed repeated warnings about problems at Lincoln Hills and Copper Lake, which house a number of violent criminals as well as some habitual offenders. Sanfelippo said serious questions had been raised about Lincoln Hills, but those were beyond the scope of his bills.

In Sanfelippo’s news release for the bills with Vukmir, the pair said, “The Victim Prevention Package emphasizes a two-pronged criminal justice approach that equally values alternatives to incarceration and ensuring violent offenders are not victimizing our communities.”

None of the bills shorten sentences for any offender, however. In an interview, Sanfelippo said the release was referring not to his legislation but to the status quo, which he said is already offering offenders alternatives to prison.

Goyke said: “The press release says we care about low level offenders but the policy does not back that up.” The bills would:

Expand cases when judges could designate defendants as serious juvenile offenders, allowing courts to do so for any crime that would be a felony if committed by an adult. In the vast majority of cases, serious juvenile offenders end up being housed at Lincoln Hills or Copper Lake — the state’s only youth prison complex.

Remove the threeyear maximum for offenders staying at juvenile prisons.

Require the Department of Corrections to recommend revoking probation for any offender charged with a new crime.

Increase the mandatory penalty for murder, second-degree homicide and certain other repeat violent offenses to five years in prison, up from three years and six months.

Toughen penalties on certain violent offenders who are banned from keeping a gun and do so anyway.