Weekly Fiscal Facts are provided to Wisconsin Newspaper Association members by the Wisconsin Policy Forum, the state’s leading resource for nonpartisan state and local government research and civic education. The Wisconsin Policy Forum logo can be downloaded here.
The number of people incarcerated in Wisconsin state prisons for intoxicated driving offenses hit a record high in 2024, our latest research finds. In December, 2,750 adults were incarcerated in state prisons for OWI offenses, enough to fill Wisconsin’s two largest prisons.
In total, Wisconsin’s OWI prison population has increased more than four-fold since 2000. This was influenced by increasingly tough penalties for the most serious cases, as well as increasing prison admissions for new offenses.
The first increase in Wisconsin’s OWI prison population was from 2000 through 2009, likely influenced by a 2003 reduction in the legal maximum blood alcohol concentration from 0.10% to 0.08%. The population plateaued in the 2010s, then increased sharply again during the early 2020s, potentially due in part to changes in behavior and a backlog of OWI cases in the court system.
Another key factor in this trend is policy changes that upped penalties for repeat OWI offenses. As a result, Wisconsin’s penalties are now more severe than most neighboring states for the most serious OWI convictions, even as they are generally less severe for initial convictions.
As the overall prison population has remained relatively constant over the past two decades, those with OWI convictions make up an increasing share. In 2000, just 3.3% of the state’s prison population was incarcerated for an OWI conviction. That share peaked at 12.7% in 2023, and in 2025 it remained very elevated at 11.8%.
Notably, the largest increase in OWI incarceration has been among adults 55 and older. Since 2010, the per capita incarceration rate for adults 55 and older has more than tripled. As of 2024, Black and American Indian adults were over-represented in prisons for these convictions relative to their share of the population. Women also account for a small but fast-growing share of those incarcerated for OWI offenses.
It’s reasonable to ask if changes in alcohol use may account, at least in part, for rising OWI incarceration. Data show that in 2024, fewer Wisconsinites used alcohol overall relative to prior years. But among those who consume alcohol frequently, they are drinking significantly more than before.
The report offers a range of measures that state and local officials could consider to address intoxicated driving in Wisconsin without further bolstering incarceration. They include increasing funding for OWI courts; improving access to substance abuse programs; increasing alcohol taxes; increasing transportation options, especially in rural areas, for people who have been drinking; or making more data available to local law enforcement to help them work with alcohol retailers to reduce OWI offenses. The state could also cap the density of alcohol sales permits or licenses, provide funding to local municipalities to conduct alcohol age compliance checks, reduce the days or hours during which retailers could sell alcohol, or further reduce the legal blood alcohol content limit.
Some of these measures would be politically fraught, tough to implement, or carry significant costs. However, the report concludes, “not acting on this issue carries its own costs.”
This information is provided to Wisconsin Newspaper Association members as a service of the Wisconsin Policy Forum, the state’s leading resource for nonpartisan state and local government research and civic education. Learn more at wispolicyforum.org.
