Juvenile Life Without Parole Legislation Left on the Table Again
By Sherry Reames
I’ve been following the work of WayJ (Wisconsin Alliance for Youth Justice) with admiration since the fall of 2021. I’ve been impressed with the systematic way they laid the groundwork for a Wisconsin law banning life without parole sentences for juvenile offenders, and by their continuing determination to get such a bill through the Legislature. I’ve been looking forward to the day when I could share the good news of their success with other members of MOSES and explain how they achieved it. But, evidently, 2026 is not the year that will happen.
WayJ’s strategy has continued to evolve. Early in their existence they joined forces with a national organization on this issue, The Campaign for the Fair Sentencing of Youth. After studying model legislation and messaging that had worked in other states – over half of which have now banned juvenile life sentences – WayJ leaders found legislators to introduce bills in both houses of the Wisconsin Legislature and embarked on a lobbying campaign to persuade other legislators to sign on as sponsors. In the 2021-’22 legislative session, they started with a bipartisan team of authors and recruited two dozen more sponsors, mostly Assembly Democrats. The bills died in committee.
In 2023-’24, WayJ focused mostly on Republicans. They asked Sen. Jesse James (R) and Rep. Todd Novak (R ) to author the bills they wanted, and they focused their lobbying on conservative-learning members of key committees. WayJ’s campaign that winter included a well-attended public hearing, with powerful testimonies from former juvenile lifers who have gone on to become valuable members of society. The legislators were listening. In February 2024, the bills actually seemed to have a good chance of becoming law, but they never got a floor vote, because the Assembly called an early end to the session and members went home to campaign.
When the 2025-26 session started, WayJ went to work even faster, starting with the same Republican authors, and did even more carefully organized lobbying with key legislators. Their bills got assigned to the appropriate committees and picked up quite a few sponsors, but the public hearing expected in January or early February never even got scheduled. And then there were no more hopes for this year. On Feb. 13, Assembly leaders announced that the session was again ending early, with the last floor votes scheduled for Feb. 19.
In the coming weeks, the leaders of WayJ will be trying to figure out what went wrong this year and deciding what changes to make next time. I will keep paying attention, both because I want them to succeed and because I believe that MOSES and WISDOM can learn from their example.