Justice System Reform Initiative (JSRI) Task Force Very Active in 2025!

•  JSRI’s priorities for 2025 and beyond. The italicized text describes progress made in 2025.

• The Crisis/Triage Center is an essential reform that will help keep people out of the criminal-legal system. It will also be an important resource for some individuals when they are having a mental health crisis. Establishing this center has been delayed, due both to a new state administrative rule and to funding issues.  
• The Community Alternative Response Emergency Services (CARES), a non-law-enforcement response program, has been well received in Madison and was expanded to Sun Prairie in 2025. 
• The Dane County Department of Public Safety Communications (911 Center) was supposed to add a Mental Health and Call Diversion Division. This addition was cut from the 2026 County budget, but it is still needed. Some recognition of the promise of this program was indicated in the budget by retaining funding for the administrator, who is laying the foundation for eventual creation of this division.  
• Dane County has multiple jail- and prison-diversion programs. The largest is the Deferred Prosecution Program (DPP). The final budget retained one position that had been slated to be cut from the DPP. The budget also added two supervisor positions to the Comprehensive Community Services (CCS) program, which provides case-managed services and self-selected treatment for individuals with mental-health and substance-abuse issues.
• Jail Consolidation Project. The current jail is out-of-date and inhumane. The consolidation project has come with many commitments regarding solitary confinement, training, reentry, mental health, family visitation, data, and other issues. Construction on the new, more humane jail is visibly under way. 
• Expansion of data collection, analysis, and reporting about all aspects (arrests, court, jail, prison, etc.) of the Dane County criminal-legal system. Progress has been made, but more needs to be done for crisis response and mental health. For more information on this, see https://cjc.danecounty.gov/Data-and-Dashboards. 
• Freezing long-vacant positions in the Sheriff’s Office and reinvesting the savings in criminal-legal system reform. This issue was fiercely argued, but it ended up widely supported by the members of the County Board. MOSES advocated strongly for this result; see accompanying article.
• The new Dane County Office of Justice Reform is dedicated to implementing reforms. One of its first initiatives will be a pilot of a Community Court, which is scheduled to open in Dane County in 2026. 
• Expanding treatment and services to individuals in the Huber (jail work-release) program. We have not seen much change here.

• Orientations for new and relatively recently elected county supervisors

In February and March, we held online orientation sessions for six supervisors. We introduced them to MOSES and JSRI and learned why they had joined the Board. 

• Outreach and discussion

We attended multiple tours of the Dane County Jail and of the 911 Center. We invited and heard from many guest speakers, including the Clerk of Courts, the director of Pretrial Services, the 911 Center manager, the Office of Justice Reform director, the Deferred Prosecution Program manager, and the Community Court manager.

• Sequential Intercept Model

We participated in the Sequential Intercept Model (SIM) workshop. SIM groups the complexity of the criminal-legal system into sequential steps, to consider how people can be diverted at each step. The goal is to help individuals get the services and treatments they need and to keep them out of the criminal-legal system and the jail. The SIM model is useful for guiding future improvements and reforms. MOSES is particularly happy with Dane County’s focus on the SIM model, because it starts with the assumption that the County should maximize diversion from the criminal-legal system at every possible point.

•  Dane County Jail Communication Contract
  In 2025, it was proposed that the County contract with a company that would have electronically scanned all paper letters coming into the jail. The vendor would also have owned and monetized data collected from jail residents, and from individuals communicating with them. There was significant community response, including from MOSES, against this contract. The County Board rejected the contract, extended the current contract, and now needs to come up with another approach.

1. 1. The Dane County Department of Public Safety Communications (911 Center) Mental Health and Call Diversion Division
      We advocated against cutting four crisis-work positions from the County budget. Our advocacy results from our interest in CARES, where about 25% of the calls can be handled over the phone by an experienced crisis worker, without the need to send out the CARES mobile crisis unit. These positions provide a way to expand the over-the-phone part of CARES throughout the entire county at a very modest cost. The four positions were cut, but there is significant interest in restoring them at some point.

• 2026 County budget compromise
  We strongly advocated in favor of the compromise that restored some of the cuts to the social safety net that were in County Executive Melissa Agard’s original budget.

• Challenges for 2026

• There is a likelihood of another budget shortfall in 2027. It is often said that budgets are moral documents; we spend on what we value. The balance between punishment and rehabilitation in Dane County will play out in our budgets. 
• Staffing for the new jail will play a large role in shaping the next County budget.
• The impact of cuts to federal and /state safety-net programs will become increasingly urgent.
• The Community Court pilot, which represents a significant reform, will be initiated. There is widespread support for this initiative. The main task for advocates is to preserve the community and supportive character of the Community Court. 
• Critical services will need to be addressed, including homeless shelters, a detox center, and the jail communications contract.
• County Board elections will be held, which will bring in new supervisors.
• The debate over the meaning of “public safety” will continue.