• Dane County, Wis. has a high racial disparity for drug offenses
• The Dane County Task Force on Racial Disparities in the Criminal Justice System is looking for a way to reduce racial disparity
• In Dane County, the ratio of blacks to whites who are admitted to prison for drug offenses is 97-to-1
• The task forces hopes to make recommendations by mid-2009

Dane County is the third worst county in the United States in terms of racial disparity for drug offenses, but county officials are not taking it lying down.

The Dane County Task Force on Racial Disparities in the Criminal Justice System has been created to make recommendations to reduce racial disparity in the criminal justice system, according to a Dane County press release.

Jose Sentmanat, executive assistant for the county executive, defines racial disparity as one minority being treated more harshly than others.

Madison lies within the heart of Dane County, just west of Milwaukee.

The task force was created at the request of County Executive Kathleen Falk and County Board Chairman Scott McDonell, according to the press release.

The goal is to give recommendations to the county executive and the county board by the middle of 2009, Sentmanat said.

The task force members are trying to get their work done by the summer so it can impact the fall budgets, said Pam Oliver, a member of the task force and a sociology professor at University of Wisconsin-Madison.

A large number of attorneys and judges, along with members from the community, judicial system and NAACP are represented in the task force, Sentmanat said.

"It's a very diverse group of folks," he said.

The task force is still in the data-collecting stage as it tries to ascertain the root causes of the disparity, he said. They want to make sure they can identify the reasons for it as clearly as possible, Sentmanat said.

When collecting data for the different stages in the criminal justice system, researchers must be very careful, said Amanda Petteruti, a research and publications associate for the Justice Policy Institute and co-author of the Vortex Report.

"Data is key," she said.

The Vortex Report found that blacks are admitted to prison for drug offenses at almost 10 times the rate of whites.

"Despite similar patterns of drug use, African-Americans are far more likely than whites to be admitted for drug offenses at the county level," according to the report.

Every year in Dane County, whites are admitted to prison for drugs at a rate of 4.46 people per 100,000, while the black drug admission rate is 433.76, according to the report.

The population of Wisconsin is 6 percent black while the population in Wisconsin's correctional system is 46 percent black, said Lindsey Draper, the disproportionate minority contact coordinator for Wisconsin.

Racial disparity can occur at any stage of the criminal justice system, from police stops to decisions on sentencing, Sentmanat said.

Although the task force has not come up with any conclusions about the cause of the disparity, some theories do exist.

The difference in the rate at which crimes are committed and the difference in enforcement practices are areas requiring more information, Oliver said.

"Those are the big unknowns," she said. "There's a lot of different angles on the issue. It's important not to oversimplify or let complexity deter from it. (We) must chip away at the problem."

In 2007, Gov. Doyle created the Commission on Reducing Racial Disparities in the Wisconsin Justice System to study the statewide problem, Draper said. The commission came up with 60 recommendations to reduce racial disparity, he said.

The governor's commission found that the issue had to be handled at the local level, said Brian Blanchard, Dane County district attorney and task force member.

Draper said he applauds Dane County for taking this step.

"This was a jurisdiction that decided it wanted to work towards fairness in the criminal justice system," he said.

The task force will hold a public meeting on March 16 from 5 to 7 p.m. at the Sun Prairie Public Library.