Monday, March 8, 2010

Mothers Against Drunk Driving Slams Garthwaite Revolving Door Prison Policy

Rep. Garthwaite's revolving prison door plan took a hit on February 22 when the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel published this story about corrections releasing repeat felons months early from prison.

Things got worse when the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute reported that some offenders such as Derrick Parnell, pictured below, were re-offending just weeks after being released early under Garthwaite's plan.



Now things have gotten even worse for Garthwaite's revolving door program. Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) has called Garthwaite's plan a "time bomb." In this statement from last week, MADD's spokesman said, "Early release of repeat convicted offenders belittles the effectiveness of the current OWI law across the board and compromises public safety."

Rather than backtracking from this obviously flawed policy, what have Democrats like Garthwaite done? They've released two more convicted drunk drivers - this time 6 and 7 time offenders. To date, 18% of offenders released under Garthwaite's plan have been convicted of drunk driving 5 or more times. Corrections plans on releasing up to 3,000 offenders over the next year meaning that if they maintain current pace there will be 540 more repeat drunk drivers back on the road thanks to Rep. Garthwaite's plan and vote in favor of this policy.