Implementing Short-Term Sanctions: Notes from the July 8 DOC Hearing
By Sherry Reames
In 2014, the Wisconsin Legislature passed Act 196, directing the Department of Corrections to create a system of short-term sanctions. These sanctions were to provide alternatives to revocation (back to prison) for people on probation, parole, or extended supervision who violated a supervision rule. If properly implemented, this bipartisan measure would contribute substantially to the success and well-being of affected individuals and help to significantly reduce Wisconsin’s prison population.
But the DOC has never actually implemented this law. As Tom Gilbert of MOSES has been reminding them since 2019, genuine implementation would require them to write a set of rules that fulfill the law’s requirements to provide examples of high, medium, and low-level sanctions to “minimize the impact on the offender’s employment . . . and family” and to “reward offenders for compliance” as well as punish them for violations.
On July 8, 11 years after the legislature passed the short-term sanctions law, the DOC made a gesture toward compliance by scheduling a one-hour online public hearing on its latest proposal to deal with the issue. Thanks to publicity from WISDOM and other prison-reform groups, the hearing was lively, well-attended, and remarkably cohesive, with witness after witness explaining the flaws of the current system and the positive differences that would result from full implementation of Act 196.
Among the highlights of the hearing were personal testimonies from re-entering citizens who, despite years of compliance with the rules, still face many more years of supervision fees and never-ending stress under the current system. As Shannon Ross put it, they are never free from the knowledge that a former friend or disgruntled ex-employee can easily get them sent back to prison. Marianne Oleson pointed out that the average length of supervision in Wisconsin vastly exceeds the 3 to 5 years which experts say is enough. Other witnesses described the traumas inflicted on family members, especially children, when an individual who just needs alcohol or mental health treatment is instead reincarcerated.
Besides Tom Gilbert, who outlined the history and importance of Act 196, several other MOSES members contributed detailed suggestions for its implementation. Eric Howland explained that the current system, which relies on “short-term” jail sentences of 30 to 90 days, can destroy whatever progress returnees have made in fulfilling their basic needs for employment, housing, and a positive social network and force them to start over. Carol Rubin explained that the DOC needs to provide agents with examples of sanctions, like weekend jail time, home confinement, or participation in AODA treatment, which would not seriously damage the individual’s employment, education or training, housing, or family. Lisa Munro cited the benefits achieved by other states when they actually used rewards and incentives as well as sanctions, allowing people to earn earlier release from supervision by completing treatment or education programs or simply complying with the rules consistently.
Other expert witnesses at the hearing emphasized the urgent need to reform Wisconsin’s system of supervision. Sean Wilson from the national organization Dream.org pointed out that the current system lacks not only real short-term sanctions, but also transparency, oversight, focus on rehabilitation and successful re-entry, and guardrails to prevent overpunishment. He added that the DOC’s new proposal to outsource more supervision to private vendors would create perverse incentives to maximize private profit. Robert Thibault, from Prison Action Milwaukee, emphasized the inconsistencies in the current system, with some counties and some individual agents far more inclined than others to revoke probation for petty rule violations, and summed up by calling for a DOC and probation culture that wants people to succeed, with rules that promote rehabilitation and recovery.
The DOC is no longer accepting written public testimony on Act 196, but it is not too late to share your ideas and recommendations with your legislators and the governor’s office.