by MOSES Publications | Mar 17, 2025 | Calls to Action, Community Issues, Information, Newsletter
Don’t Forget to Vote on April 1
From League of Women Voters materials, with thanks to Aileen Nettleto
On April 1, we will have the opportunity to help select the next Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice and determine whether the Wisconsin State Constitution is amended again. Make your vote count! Educate yourself on the candidates and the issues
Wisconsin State Supreme Court Justice
The two candidates for the open seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court justice are Susan Crawford and Brad Schimel. This non-partisan election for the 10-year term will determine the control of the Supreme Court. Make your voice heard!
The Wisconsin Supreme Court decides important questions of state law, according to the 2025 Wisconsin Supreme Court Voter Guide compiled by the nonpartisan League of Women Voters of Wisconsin. “This year, the Court will rule on an attempt to reactivate the state’s 175-year-old abortion ban … The Court is also expected to hear an appeal of a Dane County judge’s decision that overturned Act 10, restoring collective bargaining rights to unions representing 100,000 teachers and other public employees. The winner will rule on any potential redistricting and voting rules cases.”
What positions have the candidates taken on these and other positions? Here are a few examples from the LWV WI Supreme Court Voter Guide (which also includes footnotes that identify the source of each statement):
Susan Crawford:
- On abortion, Crawford supports women’s “access to reproductive health care.”
- On criminal justice, she supports “restorative justice,” transparency in sentencing data, and “diversion programs (like Drug Court) that hold people accountable while giving them a chance to avoid a conviction.”
- On her priorities, she believes “in protecting the basic rights and freedoms of Wisconsinites.” She has said she is “committed as a judge to ensuring that the courtroom presents a level playing field…and that the court is in a position to… act as a check and balance on the other branches of government.”
- On voting rules, she has opposed voter ID laws. She has supported giving a voter the option of swearing under penalty of perjury “that you are who you say you are and you’re an eligible voter.”
Brad Schimel:
- On abortion, Schimel says he’s pro-life and that Wisconsin’s 1849 abortion ban is valid. In 2012 he signed a legal white paper that endorsed making “it a crime to intentionally destroy the life of an unborn child unless it is necessary to save the life of the mother.”
- On criminal justice, as attorney general he supported a WI constitutional amendment letting crime victims participate more in court proceedings and have personal information sealed.
- On labor, he supports protecting Act 10, which outlawed collective bargaining for public employee unions.
- On his priorities, he “will take back the Wisconsin Supreme Court and end the madness” of “rogue judges…putting their radical agenda above the law.”
- On voting rules, Schimel supported Wisconsin’s 2011 voter ID law. As attorney general he attempted to limit early voting in Milwaukee and Madison.
You can find further information about each candidate’s credentials and endorsements in the LWV WI Supreme Court Voter Guide at https://guides.vote/guide/2025-wisconsin-supreme-court-voter-guide-crawford-v-schimel
Proposed State Constitutional Amendment
“Wisconsin voters will be asked one question to amend the constitution on their April ballot. Wisconsin already has a strict voter ID law on the books. This constitutional amendment seeks to enshrine Wisconsin’s voter ID law in the state constitution, [which] would make it harder to remove the photo ID requirement and limit the court’s ability to protect voters disenfranchised by the law.”
Voters will be asked to vote YES or NO on this question:
“Photographic identification for voting. Shall section 1m of article III of the constitution be created to require that voters present valid photographic identification verifying their identity in order to vote in any election, subject to exceptions which may be established by law?”
The LWV WI recommends VOTE NO. Here’s why:
“Wisconsin’s voter ID law disenfranchises eligible voters. Wisconsin’s photo ID law is among the most restrictive in the nation. Research from VoteRiders, the Brennan Center, and the University of Maryland revealed that 34.5 million voting-age US citizens …lack an unexpired, acceptable photo ID, which can lead to difficulties at the polls as a result.”
by MOSES Publications | Mar 1, 2025 | Life After Prison, Prisons, Reviews, Yearbook
MOSES Goes to the Library and the Theater
The following books and theater events were reviewed in the five 2024 MOSES newsletters. They provide helpful background on mass incarceration in the U.S. and its effects. The books themselves can generally be found in the Madison Public Library system and often in one of our lending libraries.
Becoming Ms. Burton: From Prison to Recovery to Leading the Fight for Incarcerated Women. By Susan Burton and Cari Lynn, with a foreword by Michelle Alexander, 2017
Susan Burton, who spoke at Madison’s sold-out EXPO Gala on Oct. 5, 2024, has also been mentoring the establishment of a safe house for formerly incarcerated women in Fitchburg. Burton is a pioneer in this area. After a long, lonely, seesaw struggle with addiction, imprisonment, release, relapse, and re-incarceration, she finally ended up in a safe house in South Los Angeles and was able to begin healing from the many tragedies of her life. In the five safe houses she eventually established in that city, she has provided the same opportunities for healing, reuniting with children, and rejoining the community to over 1,000 previously incarcerated women. Her organization, A New Way of Life, is a “model for a less punitive, more effective approach to rehabilitation and reentry.” (book jacket)
The Kernel of Truth, a play by local community leader Corey Marionneaux, premiered in the Overture Center’s Capital Theater on Father’s Day weekend, 2024. The play highlights incarcerated men trying to carry out their responsibilities to their kids from behind bars. It presents the stories of the men, who are imprisoned in a county jail, and shows how they come to understand the complexities of the criminal legal system and eventually realize their own power to build new lives and transform their communities. In the play, each man steps forward to speak directly to the audience, while relevant statistics about racism and other social issues flash on large screens. The audience learns the human costs of the current system, both for those locked up and for their families and communities.
Correction: Parole, Prison, and the Possibility of Change. By Ben Austen, 2023
This book starts with a history of how we got to where we are now — mass incarceration and mass supervision, with severe racial disparities throughout. 1973 was when the U.S. prison population started going up every year, fueled by “law and order” and “tough on crime” policies and politicians. Austen then follows the stories of two Black men who went to prison in Illinois as teenagers in the early ‘70s, as they try over and over to gain parole: struggles fraught with unpredictability and susceptible to racial bias and other extraneous factors. Lastly, Austen tells of campaigns in Illinois and other states to greatly expand the possibility of second chances. Our society can’t afford to continue “our devastating over-reliance on imprisonment,” he says; we must keep trying to change what we’ve wrought.
The 50 is a documentary about giving incarcerated people a second chance by training them as addiction counselors. EXPO sponsored the film showing and a panel afterward at the Urban League’s Black Business Hub in March 2024. The story: In 2006, the federal government ordered California to reduce its prison population by 50,000 to relieve overcrowding. Over 85% of those in prison were involved in drug use. For the first time, the state legislature had budgeted money for rehabilitation, and some determined people introduced an offender/mentor certification program for 50 Solano state prison residents. Success spread the program to other prisons in the state, a success that was due to the counselors’ having to deal with their own traumatized selves first. View the film at the50film.com.
Taking Action for Social Justice Through the FAST Program: A Memoir by a Social Worker. By Dr. Lynn McDonald, 2023
Dr. Lynn McDonald is a Madison resident and social worker who in 1998 established FAST (Families and Schools Together), a program whose purpose is to establish and strengthen bonds between schools and families, between parents and their children, and among parents in the program. McDonald took FAST to 23 countries. She allowed for and encouraged cultural modifications but insisted that the basic outline be followed. It was especially critical that everyone in the participating families felt respected, and that they had a voice. It is amazing what this eight-week program could and did accomplish in very different parts of the world; it significantly improved the school success of the children involved. Madison schools used to participate, but funding has run out; $1 million is needed to reinstate it.
The Worst Thing We’ve Ever Done: One Juror’s Reckoning with Racial Injustice. By Carol Menaker, 2023
In 1976, Carol Menaker, a young white middle-class woman living in Philadelphia, was summoned for jury duty in a high-profile in-prison murder case. The jury was sequestered; she was separated from her husband and her life for the 21 days it took from jury selection to jury decision on the fate of a young Black man already in prison for murder. The jury was told that if he’d been present at the murders, he was guilty. Menaker accepted this information, voted with the rest of the jury to convict, and went back to her own life. But as years went by, she began researching the man she’d convicted and now does what she can to reverse both convictions, as all evidence points to them both being tragically wrong, fueled by racism and politics. She tries to be fair to all involved, but the convicted man is still in prison.
by MOSES Publications | Mar 1, 2025 | Featured, Information, MOSES leadership, Support MOSES, Yearbook
New Congregations That Joined MOSES in 2024
2024 brought three new congregations/organizations into the MOSES fold. While all new members are celebrated, these three additions were particularly welcome. A longtime goal for MOSES has been to increase diversity in our membership. Our President, Saundra Brown, has made it her personal goal to bring more African American congregations into MOSES. Second Baptist Church became her first milestone toward that goal.
Anyone who has attended our monthly meetings would quickly observe that our membership is more senior in nature than we might like. While we of retirement age do have more discretionary time to spend, like any organization we value the ideas and energy of younger members. Thus we were thrilled to add The Crossing to our membership rolls this year. The Crossing is a multifaith, progressive student ministry at UW-Madison. It is supported by three Protestant denominations: American Baptist, United Methodist, and United Church of Christ.
The third new member congregation that joined us this year was Middleton Community United Church of Christ. The history of this congregation is unique, as it was founded in 1936 by a group of people who wanted a Sunday School for area children whose parents were not members of the existing Lutheran or Catholic denominations. As a result, it has always been known as “the church home for those who do not have a home.”
All three of our new member organizations are very committed to activities in the wider community. In addition to its regular church services, Second Baptist currently celebrates Annual Days and is active with Allied Partners and other outreach programs. As a congregation working with compassion to help people caught for too long in a complex criminal-legal system that is especially repressive to Black, brown, and poor people, they are a great fit with MOSES. Pastor Anthony Wade says, “Let’s do it!”
The Crossing’s Executive Director Mike Burch first became connected with Jerry Hancock of the Prison Ministry Project and MOSES organizer James Morgan. That led to The Crossing becoming a member of MOSES. Mike hopes to expand the work of The Crossing to reach out to students on campus who have been affected by the carceral system.
Middleton Community Church, led by The Rev. Zayna Thomley and a committed lay community, has a long history of reaching out to the community. They welcome their neighbors for summer twilight movies on the lawn, “Trunk or Treat” for Halloween, and an Electric Vehicle and Sustainability Show. They are also involved in raising food for local pantries at the Forward Garden at the Pope farm.
These are just thumbnail sketches of our three new member congregations. For more detailed information, go online to our web page https://www.mosesmadison.org/, click on “About Us,” and then go to Newsletters. You will find more information about The Crossing in the February/ March issue, Middleton Community Church in the April/May issue, and Second Baptist Church in the October/November issue.
by MOSES Publications | Mar 1, 2025 | Events, Life After Prison, Prisons, Yearbook
Additional Learning Opportunities for MOSES and the Community in 2024
(1) “End the Lockdowns,” a community forum at First Unitarian Society on Feb. 1, presented dramatic testimony about the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Wisconsin’s overcrowded prisons. James Wilbur, outgoing director of prison inreach for WISDOM, described the squalid conditions inside Waupun and Green Bay in particular, and tragic personal stories were added by family members whose incarcerated loved ones had died or been severely injured as a result of abuse or neglect by prison staff.
Confronting the obvious need to alleviate this crisis, Mark Rice, director of WISDOM’s Transformational Justice Campaign, outlined some practical steps that Gov. Evers and the DOC could take to reduce the prison population; and two local state legislators, Sen. Kelda Roys and Rep. Shelia Stubbs, both D-Madison, suggested some smaller steps toward reform that might win enough bipartisan support to become law in the near future. The take-away message from the forum was to keep lobbying and educating more voters about the needed changes.
(2) Panel of Experts on Parole Issues: Also on Feb. 1, the UW Law School gathered a distinguished panel to discuss the pluses and minuses of the parole system in Wisconsin and elsewhere in the U.S. The panel included Ben Austen, author of Correction: Prison, Parole, and the Possibility of Reform; ACLU Staff Attorney Emma Shakeshaft; John Tate II, who chaired the Wisconsin Parole Commission from 2019 to 2022; and Danté Cottingham, a former juvenile lifer who received parole during Tate’s tenure. Among the issues they addressed were the intended purposes of parole, the susceptibility of parole boards to bias and politics, what actually works to encourage rehabilitation and successful re-entry, and how the system can be reformed to enable more successes. For more on parole, see the fuller account of this event in the MOSES Newsletter for February/March 2024 and our review of Austen’s important book.
(3) Lunch and Learn Fundraiser About Madison’s New SAFE House: On May 15, MOSES members and supporters gathered to hear a presentation by Delilah McKinney, about the special vulnerability of women during their re-entry from incarceration and the promise represented by Susan Burton’s SAFE Housing Network. McKinney shared her own inspiring journey: from dealing with post-prison trauma to becoming a peer specialist to help other women during re-entry, to learning from Burton how to meet newly released women’s need for secure housing until they get back on their feet, and to actually establishing the first such SAFE House in Wisconsin. Attendees at this event were encouraged to contribute financially to both the SAFE House and MOSES. The MOSES Newsletter also reviewed Burton’s book this year.
by MOSES Publications | Mar 1, 2025 | Advocacy, Prisons, WISDOM, Yearbook
Wisconsin Hears About Solitary Confinement
On April 23, 2024, in the state Capitol building, a panel of 10 spoke to a packed hearing room about the practice of solitary confinement in Wisconsin’s prisons and jails. The 70-plus listeners included five legislators and about twice that many aides; the panel included seven who had spent time in solitary, two ministers, and a woman who had recently lost her dad to suicide in solitary.
The first speaker was MOSES’s own Talib Akbar, who designed, and with the help of Edgewood College students built, a solitary confinement cell replica that is (as of December) on display at The Crossing on the UW campus. Akbar said that solitary changes people, alters them in some way. He began his volunteer effort to apprise the public about the realities of solitary in 2014 and has taken the cell, which people can actually sit in and experience, to various places in Madison, to different cities in Wisconsin, and to a few other states. He has also written a play, “Like an Animal in a Cage,” which has been performed by people who have spent time in solitary. He noted that the Wisconsin DOC has reduced maximum time in solitary from 360 days/year to 90, but said the practice needed to be ended entirely.
“Incarceration is one of the social deterrents to public health,” said Melissa Ludin from the ACLU. “A person who’s gone to prison is 12 times more likely to die than one who hasn’t been to prison. Incarceration causes PTSD, and solitary makes it even worse. Solitary is a jail within a prison.”
Ludin spent 100 days in solitary during an imprisonment in her youth; she was taken out only twice, for medical appointments. She still feels the long-term effects of that experience, though she’s been out since 2007.
Prince Rashad grew up in the early ‘80s and ended up in Green Bay Correctional Institution at age 18. In solitary, he became suicidal; “the experience made me more dangerous,” he said. He was sent to solitary six times; each time it was devastating.
“It brings no resolution or rehabilitation,” he said. “We need to align our criminal justice system with international human rights standards. Solitary confinement exacerbates existing psychological conditions — or starts new ones.”
Randy Forsterling said he was in Supermax for seven years and spent 360 days in solitary, so much time that it got to be routine, he said. He had friends who were “in the hole” for 20 to 30 years. When his mom died, he couldn’t even cry, he felt so stripped of his humanity. “People in solitary aren’t even seen as human beings,” he said.
Politics is the root cause of the prison system’s problems, Forsterling said. For example, the 1994 crime bill almost tripled Wisconsin’s prison population. He said that “we the people” need to get decent people elected and restore rehabilitative programs, which have slowly been disappearing, back into the system. The DOC doesn’t let people participate in the programs they must complete until near the end of their sentence, he said, which means they can’t complete them soon enough to be considered for release anywhere close to on time.
Megan Kolb tearfully related her father’s last days before he hanged himself after nine days in solitary confinement. He spent those days begging for his psychiatric meds, which he had not gotten in 71 days. He was given no paper, no pen, no books. “We need rehabilitation, not torture,” she declared.
“Bobby” was paroled three years ago by John Tate II (the crowd applauded this name), 27 years into a 60-year sentence. He spent over seven years in solitary. He went in with PTSD due to the loss of his parents, and while in prison received notice via phone that his brother had died. He got no support beyond the empathetic silence of fellow prisoners when his phone call was announced. “Solitary is torture,” he said. “I survived by will alone.” Bobby is now a state-certified peer-support specialist.
Jessica Jacobs is now the director of FREE, which advocates for incarcerated and previously incarcerated women. Two of FREE’s current campaigns are 1) to get doulas in prisons to assist pregnant women and 2) to end the shackling of pregnant women.
Jessica described additional dehumanizing aspects of prison that she experienced: being known only by a number, or maybe one’s last name; being physically abused and completely at the mercy of the guards; being put in solitary for no reason, perhaps even during the booking process. She said the reasons people are imprisoned — PTSD, trauma, sexual assault, substance abuse — are all signals of poverty, and that’s what we need to deal with. We need to expand programming within and outside the prisons, and to offer trauma therapy, not solitary confinement!
Ron Stief talked about the National Religious Campaign Against Torture (NRCAT), which started 20 years ago out of concern about U.S.-run prisons in Iraq and of Iraqis, e.g. Guantanamo. Five years in, the campaign began to also address the torture in stateside prisons. There have been some successes, e.g. in Maine, where the head of the Maine Department of Corrections (DOC) rewrote its policies. Rick Raemisch, who moved from heading the Wisconsin DOC to directing its parallel in Colorado, spent a few hours in a solitary-cell replica and ended up eliminating solitary confinement in Colorado prisons.
NRCAT has legislative campaigns in 23 states. Michigan has made some progress. Illinois has passed the Nelson Mandela Act: no more than 10 days in solitary, and no more than 20 hours/day. California has passed the Mandela Act, but the governor has threatened to veto it. That happened in New York, too, so the legislature assembled a veto-proof majority. From written legislation to passage took eight years! In New Jersey, there was a confluence of state legislators, faith communities, and activists. Legislators sat in a solitary cell replica, wrote a bill, and had it signed into law in 2022.
There are lots of people in solitary in city jails, too, Stief said, adding that 60-90% of those in solitary would do fine in the general prison/jail population. We have a fear-based system, he said.
The role of the faith community? Working to end torture is a moral absolute, he said. The fight will be long, but it’s worth it. We need the voices of all of us working together.
Legislators respond
“I never thought I’d be legislating [the right of] ‘seeing the sky,’” Rep. Ryan Clancy (D-Milwaukee) said. “The standard is so incredibly low in Wisconsin.”
What gives him hope, said Rep. Darrin Madison (D-Milwaukee), is that advocacy is breaking through, and other states are passing legislation. “When I see advocacy by people who’ve been transitioning back [from prison], with so much pain and such lack of resources, in a world that tells them they’re worth nothing – it gives me the will to sit in this space, which can be one of the most toxic in the state. I know that it can happen here [too], in a state that has a perverse relationship with incarceration.”
“A lot of folks just don’t know,” he added. “They buy into building more prisons, giving more money to the police … The real solution is safety nets … ‘Know that we have your backs,’” he added, addressing those who are system-impacted.
Rev. Willy Brisco of MICAH gave the closing blessing, starting with a little story about God looking down on our institutions of slavery, prisons, and war and saying, “’That’s not what I meant!’”
“Tell someone what you heard today, and don’t be silent again,” Rev. Brisco admonished everyone. The crowd responded with a firm “Amen!”
WISDOM members delivered informational packets to all legislators’ offices after the event.
What is the “23” Campaign?
Since May 23, 2024, MOSES members have been gathering on the Capitol’s State Street steps once a month at noon on the 23rd to draw attention to the fact that hundreds of people are being subjected to solitary confinement in Wisconsin’s prisons and jails, and to demand that the state put an end to this practice. The 23rd was chosen to draw attention to the fact that people in solitary spend 23+ hours/day alone in their tiny cells. They may spend the other hour someplace else, but still alone.
The United Nations has declared that solitary confinement for more than 15 days is torture. By that measure, we are torturing hundreds of people in Wisconsin’s prisons and jails. Said WISDOM’s David Liners: “Wisconsin needs to join the states that have adopted the ‘Mandela rule’ that limits the practice to 15 days, and that for only in extraordinary circumstances.”
