Evers: ‘Eventually, We Should Be Looking to Lower’ Prison Population ‘as Much as Possible’

During an interview with NBC News released on Friday, Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers (D) defended his goal of halving the state’s prison population and argued that “eventually, we should be looking to lower it as much as possible” by “making sure that we have options for people in the beginning.”

NBC News Correspondent Shaquille Brewster asked, “We were with your opponent yesterday, and one thing that we heard is, back in 2018, you said that the idea of cutting the prison population in half was absolutely a worthy goal. My question for you is, is that still your goal now? He says anything more would be dangerous. Is that still your goal today?”

Evers responded, “Well, certainly, our goal is to make our criminal justice system fair and secure at the same time. So, we actually, this last four years, we’ve been focusing on the — what happens before people are incarcerated, the different types of courts, we have veteran courts now and we have AODA courts so that people that have minor instances of dealing with the system, they can get the help they need and maybe not be incarcerated. So, we’ve been lowering, actually, the number of people incarcerated in the state, but by having these separate courts all across the state, even in Republican counties. And so, we’ll continue to focus on that.”

Brewster then asked, “He says reducing the population is dangerous, though. Are you walking away from that initial goal of cutting it in half?”

Evers answered, “Well, no. I think, eventually, we should be looking to lower it as much as possible. And again, that has to do with beginning — making sure that we have options for people in the beginning. But, at the end of the day, we also have to provide the resources to our counties and our municipalities to deal with the violence that exists. And so, we understand that. Unfortunately, the Republicans haven’t in the past. Because they keep cutting what money should be going to the municipalities.”

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