John Pfaff was quoted in a WSB-TV article about Wisconsin’s prison population.
The state could halve the number of people entering into prisons every year by keeping nonviolent offenders out of prison, but could not cut the prison population itself in half, said John Pfaff, a criminal law professor at Fordham University who reviewed Wisconsin’s prison admissions and population.
Wisconsin admitted more than 9,000 new prisoners in 2016 and about 45 percent of those committed a violent crime. Pffaf points out that offenders convicted of violent crimes serve longer sentences, often lasting more than a year. So on top of the roughly 15,000 prisoners currently imprisoned for a violent offense, new offenders are coming in every year who have been ordered to serve sentences lasting more than a year.
“The fear-mongering is misplaced, but the numbers are what they are,” Pfaff said of Walker’s tweet. “It’s mathematically impossible to cut it in half without releasing people who were convicted of violent crimes.”