Right-wing Wisconsin Gov. who-has-never-visited-a-prison-as-Governor/granted-a-single-pardon-Scott Walker plans to virtually wipe out the Wisconsin Parole Commission through his election-year 2017-'19 budget by reducing it to a single employee with a salary the Corrections department would have to cobble together internally.
That way, as high-profile Wisconsin defense lawyer Lester Pines points out, parole will be hard to find.
So, Catch 22, thousands of Wisconsin inmates: Feel free to apply for parole. Theparole commission Director will 'consider' your application, if the Director got paid that month and there was an intern around to open the mail and put your parole application paperwork on the bottom of the pile.
And not to make light of this new Walker move on people he disregards, and on the state government he is hell-bent on demolishing, but it's not surprising that Walker would throw a monkey wrench into the "parole" system - - a French term incorporating promised commitments of trust and honor required of parolees prior to their release.
But here's my question.
Don't expectations of trust and honor flow both ways?
Don't inmates, potential parolees, families and friends correctly assume that there is trust and honor on the government side?
That government maintains a system with basic procedures in place based on the government funding and financing a parole process beyond a single place-holding Director so that there might be justice at the end?
Walker has a history of coordinating Executive power with his one-party allies in the Legislature and the State Supreme Court to ignore and overturn the status quo - - collective bargaining, local controls, environmental protections, unfettered voting, women's health financing, etc.
Instead there has been a continuing lack of honor and trust in this administration from the beginning, enabling the intentional exercise of power over people who have far less.
Wisconsin, under Walker, is a state growing long without parole, now about to have even less, come what may in the state's prisons.
The big picture - - no parole, non rein. Nada.
That way, as high-profile Wisconsin defense lawyer Lester Pines points out, parole will be hard to find.
So, Catch 22, thousands of Wisconsin inmates: Feel free to apply for parole. The
And not to make light of this new Walker move on people he disregards, and on the state government he is hell-bent on demolishing, but it's not surprising that Walker would throw a monkey wrench into the "parole" system - - a French term incorporating promised commitments of trust and honor required of parolees prior to their release.
But here's my question.
Don't expectations of trust and honor flow both ways?
Don't inmates, potential parolees, families and friends correctly assume that there is trust and honor on the government side?
That government maintains a system with basic procedures in place based on the government funding and financing a parole process beyond a single place-holding Director so that there might be justice at the end?
Walker has a history of coordinating Executive power with his one-party allies in the Legislature and the State Supreme Court to ignore and overturn the status quo - - collective bargaining, local controls, environmental protections, unfettered voting, women's health financing, etc.
Instead there has been a continuing lack of honor and trust in this administration from the beginning, enabling the intentional exercise of power over people who have far less.
Wisconsin, under Walker, is a state growing long without parole, now about to have even less, come what may in the state's prisons.
The big picture - - no parole, non rein. Nada.
And, how much will this cost the taxpayers of WI? Just wait for the unrest and uprisings in the prisons!
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