Put Schools Ahead of Prisons

Wisconsin must "rethink the justice system" and put education ahead of incarceration, State Supreme Court candidate Judge Louis B. Butler Jr. told a group of WEAC members Saturday (February 26, 2000).

"Our young people think it is a rite of passage to adulthood to spend time in jail," Butler said in a luncheon address at the WEAC Minority Affairs Committee's Winter Leadership Conference in Milwaukee.

Butler said he is concerned about the impact of the state's "prison industrial complex" which has seen the prison population increase from 4,000 in 1985 to 21,000 this year.

Nobody, he said, wants to see violent criminals on the streets, but not everyone who is incarcerated is a danger to society and in many cases education and alternative approaches will work.

As a municipal court judge in Milwaukee, Butler said, he works with the kids, the parents, and the education system to help juvenile offenders get back on track.

When young people are brought before him, he said, he begins by asking them questions about themselves rather than the violation.

"What is your game plan? What is your road map for success?" he asks them. "We make them take responsibility for their actions."

If they committed an act of vandalism, for example, he will have them not just clean up the damage they caused but clean other property as well. He also requires juveniles to bring their next report cards back to the court, a procedure that has helped spur some to raise their grades from Ds and Fs to As.

Butler said he is a strong supporter of public education.

"We've got to do whatever we can to save our public education system," he said, because of the critical role it plays in the lives and future of our children.