Healing Over Harm: WISDOM Affiliates and Allied Organizations Rally at Governor’s Mansion
A good-sized crowd turned out for this WISDOM-organized demonstration on August 23. At least 20 members of MOSES were on hand, many with homemade signs, joining a large contingent from MICAH in Milwaukee, representatives from other WISDOM affiliates around the state, and allies from other organizations like the ACLU and the Poor People’s Campaign. MOSES Organizer James Morgan served as emcee, introducing all the speakers and energizing the crowd with repeated chants of “Healing Over Harm! People Over Prisons!”
WISDOM president, the Rev. Kathleen Gloff, opened the program with a memorably powerful prayer, and the Rev. Michael Burch from MOSES and The Crossing closed the event on a note of hope. The speakers in between kept the intensity level high as they offered first-hand testimonies to the cruelties and injustices of Wisconsin’s incarceration system. Here’s the list of speakers and their subjects:
- JenAnn Bauer, on issues especially impacting women prisoners;
- Bobby Ayala, on his experience as an Old Law juvenile lifer;
- Megan Hoffman, whose mentally ill father died at Waupun due to medical neglect;
- Tammy Jackson, a mother poetically protesting the incarceration of her three daughters;
- Tom Gilbert, a father working against the revocation system that ensnared his son;
- Mark Rice, WISDOM Transformational Justice Coordinator, summarizing the reforms we will demand from this governor, the Legislature, and all political candidates in 2026;
- Kina Collins, WISDOM interim executive director, on why Wisconsin policies matter regionally and nationally;
- Ray Mendoza, a family member calling on other men to stand up against the shackling of incarcerated pregnant women.