Recommendations for reducing racial inequalities in Dane County's criminal justice system were revealed by the Dane County Task Force on Racial Disparities in a report released on its findings Wednesday.
The report's top recommendations include a call for county and state leaders to reduce disparities by providing additional funding to diversion programs, which allow offenders to avoid criminal charges under certain conditions, and establishing a restorative justice program.
""It is urgent, it is critical and it is necessary for us to move these recommendations forward,"" task force co-chair Celia Jackson said. ""Without the political will, without collaboration and without a sense of solidarity, these recommendations just become issues ... They become lost in the budget process.""
County Executive Kathleen Falk requested that the Dane County Equal Opportunity Commission form the task force in 2008 to identify and offer possible solutions to disparities in rates of arrest and incarceration among different races.
The 82-page report includes a brief history of racial disparities in Dane County, socioeconomic factors that lead to disproportionate arrest and incarceration rates and a detailed list of recommendations for the system as a whole to improve.
According to the report, in 2008 Wisconsin had one of the top 10 largest disparities in incarceration rates nationwide.
More specifically, Dane County was among the nation's top five communities with the highest racial disparities in arrests and imprisonment in the early 2000s. Nearly one half of young black men in Dane County are either in prison or on probation, parole or extended supervision.
The task force divided into five subgroups for the report: data collection on the plea-bargaining stage, re-entry into the community and revocation in the corrections systems, pre-arrests, policing practices, prosecution alternatives and arrest alternatives.
At a news conference held to discuss the task force's findings, Falk expressed her commitment to fulfilling the task force's recommendations.
