Drug Courts in Wisconsin Mostly for White People (84%)

GreenBayPress

Even before Dane County Circuit Judge Sarah O'Brien crunched the numbers, she knew something was amiss. Her strongest evidence: "The courtroom didn't look right when I walked in."

O'Brien, who retired in 2012, was referring to the stark racial disparities in Dane County's drug court. The people in front of her — the ones who had gotten the chance to reduce or avoid criminal convictions in exchange for completing treatment and other programming — were overwhelmingly white.

In 2012, about one-third of those arrested for drug crimes in Dane County were black, according to the state Office of Justice Assistance. But African-Americans made up just 10 percent of those participating in the county's drug court that year, according to Journey Mental Health, a Madison nonprofit that provides treatment and case management for the program.

As recently as May, despite a concerted effort to increase minority participation, 84 percent of defendants in Dane County drug court were white and 14 percent were black.