Gov. Jim Doyle announced in a Martin Luther King Jr. Day speech that he will appoint a panel to look at the high incarceration rates of minorities in the state.,”

A new study shows the number of non-white youth at all levels of the criminal justice system in Wisconsin is on the rise, and state officials are talking about it.

Gov. Jim Doyle announced in a Martin Luther King Jr. Day speech that he will appoint a panel to look at the high incarceration rates of minorities in the state.

A report from the National Council on Crime and Delinquency released Jan. 15 found that Wisconsin led the country in the number of non-white youth put in adult prisons. The NCCD is a nonprofit criminal justice research organization.

Barry Krisberg, the study's chief and president of the NCCD, said minorities have an "accumulated disadvantage" in every stage of the criminal justice system, whether it be dealing with police or juvenile court.

"At every stage of the system, it gets worse," Krisberg said.

Krisberg pointed to the study's statistics showing Wisconsin as the leading state in the number of non-white youth being sent to prison. The rate of black youth sent to prison in Wisconsin is nearly 155 per 100,000, he said. The rate is almost 110 for American Indian youth and 51 for Hispanic youth. White youth are sent to prison at a rate of 8 per 100,000, according to the research.

The rate for black youth is "really very, very high," Krisberg said.

Statistics were also released for the number of youth in residential custody. The number of black youth in residential custody compared to white youth in Wisconsin is a 10:1 ratio, according to Krisberg.

State Rep. Tamara Grigsby (D-Milwaukee) hopes to be on the governor's panel, the details of which have not yet been released.

"The (black) community itself faces so many disparities," she said.

Grigsby said poverty, joblessness and single parent families are not direct causes for the high incarceration rate among blacks, but that these factors play a role.

She also attributed the number of minorities involved with the criminal justice system to a "high rate of racial profiling" and a "huge disparity in sentencing." She said more blacks are affected in Milwaukee County compared to other counties in Wisconsin.

In response to charges of racial profiling, Milwaukee Police Association President John Balcerzak said police officers are just doing their jobs.

"Officers enforce the law as crime occurs," he said. "That's all they can base it on – the laws of Milwaukee and of the state of Wisconsin. . We are sworn to abide by the laws."

Organizations in the area that assist ex-offenders when they get out of prison expressed hope that former inmates could reintegrate into society after getting out of prison.

Tamra Oman, community director of nonprofit support group Voices Beyond Bars, said many ex-offenders she advises say that they have few opportunities in the first place. With poverty, it's often comes to choosing between eating and keeping the lights on, she said.

"For them, it appears that it's a system that sets them up to fail," she said.

But Oman also said she stresses personal responsibility because the "system isn't going to fix your life."

"I don't think they've had the opportunity to see the greater picture yet," she said. "I think that's a community responsibility. Our job as a community is not to say, 'Go in and fix the neighborhood,' but empower them to fix the neighborhood."

The New Hope Project, a nonprofit group that provides ex-offenders with job opportunities, works on public policy in support of low-income workers. Executive Director Julie Kerksick said her organization is concerned about high incarceration rates among black males. The way to help solve the problem, she said, is through economic opportunities.

"One of the things we want to do is make sure there are productive and legal and responsible opportunities for men when they are returning from prison," she said.

Grigsby said reintegration programs should be in place for ex-offenders.

Krisberg said improving the legal representation of young people of color, instituting "objective" decision making in cases and investing in prevention and early intervention programs are ways to help reverse the statistics his group found.

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