by MOSES Publications | Mar 17, 2025 | Action Opportunities, Advocacy, Housing, Information, Newsletter, RJAC Racial Justice for All Children
By Patti LaCross
This year the Temporary Education Program leaders of MMSD and Sun Prairie Schools, in coordination with the Education+ Advocacy Group of the Homeless Services Consortium (HSC) in which I participate, expanded the annual Homeless Awareness effort to include other Dane County schools.
Here is some of what we heard that day:
- While the average US housing vacancy is 2%, Wisconsin’s is now less than ½%. Dane County has the largest housing gap in the state, already 11,000 short.
- Our driver of homelessness is not poverty so much as affordability. Milwaukee rents average $950/month for one bedroom, $1000/month for two bedrooms. Madison’s averages are $1430 for one bedroom and $1700 for two bedrooms, and rising. Wisconsin landlords aren’t held to a rent ceiling.
- This fall MMSD was serving over 800 students experiencing homelessness, with many more doubled-up, often precariously. In Sun Prairie those who renew their lease are paying $400 more per month, and shelters have a 300-person waitlist. Last year’s number of about 150 homeless students was doubling
- Outlying communities reported their first waves of homeless students, in single to double digits. With little capacity and no funding, they depend on churches to help. At least one community has developed a proactive policing policy to protect those unhoused.
Since then, on February 12 the HSC Education & Advocacy Committee endorsed a challenge by advocates to the management of the Beacon, which provides day shelter for the unhoused. They point out that access to housing navigation in that space would help guests move toward housing. The committee also raised concerns about whether Dane County’s practice of not asking or recording information about immigrant status may be challenged by the new federal administration. For more information check out the Dane County Homeless Justice Initiative.
Actions you are invited to take:
- National Low Income Housing Coalition – Regarding passage of a final fiscal
year 2025 spending bill: https://nlihc.quorum.us/campaign/81487/
Thanks for your interest and possible support! The Housing Group of the Racial Justice for All Children Taskforce welcomes you to join us on Zoom on the 3rd Tuesday of the month from 4:30 to 6pm. These are All Our Children!
by MOSES Publications | Mar 17, 2025 | Community Issues, Events, Information, JSRI Justice System Reform Initiatives, Newsletter, Racial Equity
A JustConversation on Discretion, Charging Disparities, and Racial Dynamics in Criminal Justice
By Pamela Gates, with thanks to Vicki Warren
On Jan. 17, 2025, JustDane and the Madison Justice Team hosted a panel that explored justice in Madison, Dane County, Wisconsin, and the nation under the particular topics of discretion, disparities, and equity. JustDane Associate Director Shar-Ron Buie moderated the panel at the UW Partnership Space before a very interested crowd that filled the room.
There are critical issues in the criminal-legal system, Buie said; the most pressing are the disparities. How can we make changes so that charging decisions are fair and transparent? And how can these panelists collaborate to make meaningful change?
The panelists:
UW Criminal Law Professor Larry Glinberg, attorney, director of the Wisconsin Prosecution Project, former assistant DA, and member of the Federal Defenders Services Board. He also served as a staff attorney with the Wisconsin Innocence Project for 1.5 years, helping wrongly convicted people regain freedom.
Atty. Jack Idlas, a criminal-law specialist, former assistant legal counsel to Gov. Evers on issuing pardons. He is a public defender in Wisconsin and previously served in that capacity in Lake County, Illinois. He also worked in the juvenile system in Cook County, Illinois. He has written a book titled Courtroom 302.
The Honorable Judge James Peterson is chief judge for the U.S. District Court in the Western District of Wisconsin. He was appointed in 2014 by President Obama.
UW-Madison Sociology Professor Emeritus Doug Maynard described himself as a “conversation analyst.” He has written a book titled Inside Plea Bargaining. He has also researched jury deliberations and studied statistical patterns on how criminal-legal system involvement gets started.
Detective Sgt. Kenneth Mosley, a member of the Madison Police Department (MPD) since 2007, previously taught in Milwaukee public schools and worked in a small Milwaukee County mobile psychiatric unit with kids in crisis mode. He was a school resource officer (SRO) for four years at La Follette High School, practicing restorative justice daily and facilitating peer courts. He worked with the COPS program in the schools until 2018, when the program ended because crime was spiking and officers were needed elsewhere. He has been newly appointed by the MPD to receive complaints and investigate officers charged with wrongful conduct.
Panelists address discretion, disparities, and equity in their particular areas of expertise.
Det. Sgt. Mosley stressed that he could not speak to the situation in any police departments other than Madison. He said it is “important to bring people in the community to partner with us, to help us remedy the problems in Madison.” He strongly defended the MPD, describing its “Education, Accountability, Transparency” (EAT) policy and offering data from Madison’s south side: a lower rate of stops of people of color, plus a regular review of stops. He noted that MPD officers take a vow not to give preferential treatment, and they are always asking how they can do better.
The MPD requires its officers to take implicit bias training, he said, and it’s trying to diversify, in particular by adding more people of color. The department works on communication and community-based efforts like this panel discussion and participates in such community connections as Coffee with a Cop, National Night Out, Juneteenth, and the Civilian-Police Academy. Officers view themselves as educators and community partners and are very willing, for example, to call on mental-health professionals when they need to.
Prof. Maynard addressed a large U.S. study in which 95 million traffic stops were analyzed. There were definite patterns: Black drivers were stopped more, but were less likely to be stopped after dark. The bar for searching Black drivers’ vehicles was lower than that for searching white drivers’ vehicles.
In Dane County, Maynard continued, whites make up 84% of the population, 64% of arrests, and 52% of the arrests that come before the DA. Blacks make up 6% of the population, 31% of arrests, and 40% of the arrests that come before the DA. (DA referrals are made on the basis of the arrest reports.)
How can law enforcement and community agencies build trust? Maynard asked, and he answered:
- Require body cameras; the benefits outweigh the costs.
- Pay attention to the police department’s public materials, and study disciplinary reports.
- Establish a civilian police-oversight board (which Madison has done).
- Focus on what the police actually do, and provide training materials.
- Conduct interviews and/or conversations between the police and the community to identify issues. Use a qualitative approach to learn, for example, what a police encounter was like.
- Citing a news story from another state, Maynard added that police need to recognize that their own actions might precipitate negative reactions, and that officers’ reports might omit or understate their own provocative behavior.
Prof. Glinberg said the criminal-legal system has significant weaknesses. He particularly addressed what is called “charge-stacking”: piling up charges against an accused person. A prosecutor has vast discretion; how can that discretion be used in a fair and principled way? What is the purpose of issuing multiple charges? In the prosecutor’s office, he said, there’s a remarkable lack of data about the effectiveness of charge-stacking. Many DAs’ offices rely not on data but on instinct. For example, if the penalty on a previous conviction didn’t work (i.e., the person has reoffended), the court’s solution is to increase the severity of the penalty. In reality, that doesn’t result in a better outcome.
The way we handle low-level cases is what is feeding mass incarceration. What are we trying to achieve? Greater public safety? We need to develop data and to study the effects of our interventions. If people repeatedly offend, then our interventions aren’t working.
We need more legal limitations on prosecution. Prosecutors and the courts need to accept responsibility for both mass incarceration and the racial disparities in the system. The place to try to exert influence is the DA’s office.
What are our objectives? Are we achieving them? Are we measuring them? There’s lots of data collected on policing, but not so much on sentencing and other points in the process. Bail reform is hugely important. Cash bail is not effective; it doesn’t result in greater public safety.
How do public defenders advocate for indigent clients? Atty. Idlas started by quoting from his book, Courtroom 302: “You get used to it [disparity]. We have a largely reactive system. The Public Defender’s Office has little guidance.”
It is the duty of public defenders (PDs) to defend vigorously, he said, but implicit biases play a large role, and PDs are overwhelmed with work. It’s almost impossible for them to do justice to the number of cases they carry. So they need to triage, and sometimes clients plead guilty when they might go free if more time were spent on their case.
PDs are faced with a multitude of tasks for each case they handle: Which witnesses, if any, should be interviewed? What motions should be filed? What legal research should be done? What experts should be hired? How much time should be spent with each client?
Almost everyone in the system is incredibly well-intentioned, but also severely taxed, he said, and many clients, especially clients of color, are mistrustful of the system. Some clients treat us poorly, he added, which makes our job of defending them more difficult.
What are possible reforms? Smaller caseloads. More support staff. More collaborative teamwork. More diversity in staffing, which would increase clients’ trust and would also lead to more perspective.
If the state courts were better organized – like having a calendar that makes sense – PDs’ time could be better used, he said. PDs frequently have to go from one courtroom to another, or even from one building to another, many times a day. The Office of the Public Defender needs better internal organization, e.g. limiting the types of cases individual PDs handle, so they can develop some expertise in certain areas. And always there must be awareness of implicit bias.
“When you look at system outcomes, everyone in the system is covered by that filth,” Idlas concluded.
What role can the judiciary play in reducing disparities in sentencing? Judge Peterson’s basic answer was: more discretion. When discretion was removed by “Three Strikes” and “Truth in Sentencing” laws and replaced by mandatory guidelines and minimum sentences, the result was mass incarceration. An example is the sentencing for powder vs. crack cocaine. It used to be 1:100; now it is 1:18. Powder was known as the “white” drug and crack as the “Black” drug. Even though the disparity has been reduced significantly, it is still severely out of balance.
With regard to bail reform, Peterson declared, “Nobody in my court has ever spent a night in jail due to cash bail.” He feels this policy gives defendants a chance to show, while awaiting trial, that they can do better. “I think we [judges] do pretty well at getting around the built-in disparities when we can use our own discretion,” Peterson said. He noted that federal judges have more discretion than state judges. He also noted that most federal judges’ cases are civil, not criminal. He has fewer cases than state judges do, too, which allows him time to dig deeper into what happened.
“Mass incarceration didn’t just fall from the sky,” Buie concluded. “It was a steady process. It will take time to reverse it. We must become engaged. To dismantle mass incarceration, the answer is, “engagement, engagement, engagement!”
There was time for a little bit of audience commentary:
Kelli Thompson, former director of the state Office of the Public Defender, was in the audience. She noted that there are over 40 public defender offices in Wisconsin. She gave a passionate defense of her former clients, paraphrased here: We spend $1 billion a year to fill prison beds! We’ve done research; how do we get our research data to be used to start treating people humanely? Every person is a human being! Hang that declaration on the wall, and don’t forget it! Even one night in jail disrupts a person, disrupts their family, and disrupts their community!
The event ended with this pointed question from an audience member: When will the assumption of innocent until proven guilty be reinstated? The answer: We need to change our approach via the political process. It’s our duty as citizens.
by MOSES Publications | Mar 17, 2025 | Action Opportunities, 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 | Advocacy, Featured, Housing, Information, RJAC Racial Justice for All Children, Schools, Yearbook
Racial Justice for All Children Task Force (RJAC) Had a Busy Year
In 2024, RJAC was active on a number of fronts, including developing new avenues for promoting racial justice for our youth.
Education Advocacy Group (EAG)
This group focused firmly on monitoring the implementation of new early learning literacy requirements as outlined in Wisconsin Act 20, for which RJAC had advocated in 2023. This advocacy took place on a number of fronts. With the Madison Metropolitan School District (MMSD), the EAG met twice with Gabi Bell, MMSD’s director of Literacy, Bi-literacy, and Humanities. MMSD had begun its pivot to a science-of-reading based literacy curriculum prior to the passage of Act 20. We learned the following:
- MMSD will continue using its current screener, as the Department of Public Instruction has not yet selected a required screener(s) as part of its Act 20 implementation.
- MMSD will create individual reading plans for students with low reading scores by January 2025. The outline of these individual plans will be available to the public soon.
- MMSD is working on support for families and tutors, and Ms. Bell will be connecting us with this team.
The proposed 2024-25 MMSD budget identified literacy as THE district priority and proposed funding 20 additional positions at the K-1 level to support this effort. The EAG facilitated an advocacy campaign with the MMSD Board regarding this proposal. RJAC Co-Chair Shel Gross presented in-person testimony at the June 24 Board of Education meeting, and six MOSES members sent written testimony, including MOSES President Saundra Brown. Saundra also met with new MMSD Superintendent Dr. Joe Gothard and described their meeting as inspiring and hopeful. She will be connecting the task force with Dr. Gothard, who said he appreciates MOSES’s advocacy work.
Early Literacy Curriculum Council (ELCC): Act 20 created the ELCC, which was charged with identifying curricula that meet the requirements of the law. Schools purchasing these curricula would be eligible for state grants to support part of the purchase price. The EAG connected to the ELCC through one of its members, whom we met through a parents’ advocacy group called Decoding Dyslexia. EAG member Judy Fitzgerald was also monitoring the work of the ELCC. The EAG successfully advocated for a shorter list of high quality curricula that the ELCC had identified, rather than the longer list of curricula put forward by the DPI that minimally met Act 20 requirements.
Sun Prairie Area School District (SPASD): Our April meeting featured a presentation by Lisa Goldsberry, Sun Prairie School District Board member (who recently resigned due to other district issues). Lisa spoke about concerns with the cultural content of the new Sun Prairie literacy curriculum; MOSES had sent a letter in March to SPASD leaders and board members regarding these same concerns. Lisa also told us about the changes that she and others had made regarding who should be part of the team addressing these concerns and how that work should be done. SPASD worked with the curriculum’s publisher, but it does not appear that the publisher plans to make any changes. Led by EAG Chair Tracy Frank, we advocated on a number of fronts for consideration of appropriate cultural content – especially as required by other state statutes, such as Act 31 – in selection of curricula eligible for grants.
Department of Public Instruction (DPI): At our November meeting, we welcomed Barb Novak, the head of Wisconsin Reads, which is the DPI office in charge of implementing Act 20. Her presentation put Act 20 in the larger context of the various education requirements that schools need to meet. She discussed Act 31, which requires an instructional program that provides understanding of human relations, particularly with regard to Native Americans, Black Americans, Hispanics, and Hmong and other Asian Americans. This was in response to concerns the EAG had raised about the SPASD curriculum. Barb also discussed the Wisconsin Standards for English Language Arts, which also encourage texts that reflect diverse experiences. Barb also talked about the DPI’s relationship with the ELCC, which she says has improved.
Coalition Building: Members of the EAG have done networking on a variety of fronts: attending the Wisconsin Association of School District Administrators (WASDA) meeting, participating in a literacy event at the Goodman Community Center, participating in the Wisconsin Reading League Conference, and meeting with the director of the Literacy Network.
Looking Ahead: A huge disappointment this year was the state Legislature’s failure to release the funds that were appropriated to defray school districts’ costs for purchasing approved Act 20 curricula and hiring literacy specialists through the DPI to support implementation. The EAG anticipates working with the Legislature on a “trailer bill” to address this failure, as well as the concerns about the curriculum content.
Housing Group
In 2023, the Housing Group (HG), along with other members of RJAC and MOSES, participated in a successful effort to have the state Supreme Court shorten the record retention period for eviction cases in which no money judgment is entered from 20 years to two. The HG monitored implementation of this rule change into 2024, when it was finalized with a modification to address a previously unidentified conflict with another state statute.
Through 2024, the HG continued to discern how best to respond to the wide variety of housing issues currently in play, including the challenges of advocacy for affordable housing in a market that is driving housing costs higher. Given the prominent failures in low-income housing developments that dominated 2023, we seek to stay informed and speak up as people in newer housing developments encounter chaos. The reorganized Education and Advocacy Committee of the Homeless Services Consortium has welcomed MOSES’ partnership in their efforts. In support of these goals, the HG engaged in the following in 2024:
- Met with Diana Shinall, director of the Salvation Army Family Shelter on Milwaukee Street, to learn about the services provided, people served, and regulations. Diana shared considerable information and extended an invitation for the HG members to tour the facilities at a later date.
- Met with Kennedy Elementary School Social Worker Bridget Cremin to discuss the impact of housing insecurity on Kennedy students. Kennedy has the highest number of housing-insecure youth in the district. She highlighted the severe housing situation in the area, including the troubled low-income Harmony, Meadowlands, and Ace apartments housing units; and the Salvation Army Family Shelter, which serves 35 families experiencing homelessness.
- HG members and others in RJAC submitted written and oral testimony to the MMSD Board in support of Kennedy Elementary becoming a Community School as part of the 2024-25 budget. This will allow them to receive more resources to support children and families.
- Learned about implementation of a $2.5-million grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development that was awarded to the Dane County Consortium of Care in partnership with Briarpatch. The program is designed to help communities support homeless youth, typically ranging from ages 12–24. Unlike many other HUD grants, the program requires that youth voices be heavily included throughout the planning and implementation stages.
In her role as Board member of the Homeless Services Consortium, Patti La Cross engaged the HG in the Dane County Homelessness Summit in November, part of “Homeless Awareness November” events. Both Patti and RJAC Chair Shel Gross attended the summit and reported back on potential advocacy options going forward. During the 2023-24 school year, 2,284 students experienced homelessness in Dane County, and it looks like that number will be exceeded in the current school year. Patti noted two connections between homelessness and incarceration: (1) that incarceration of an adult often contributes to their children experiencing homelessness, and (2) that the experience of homelessness, itself, increases the likelihood of criminal-legal system involvement. Increasing rents and other landlord requirements are contributing to this. Services to these families are not readily available in many areas of the county, and lack of transportation to get to services was a recurring theme. Financial literacy is important for our youth, and educating adults on the requirements for obtaining and maintaining housing is also needed. The HG will look at some potential advocacy opportunities arising from this event.
Restorative Justice and Wellness
Under the leadership of Barbie Jackson, RJAC is building on the restorative justice and school wellness work it engaged in during 2023. In January, RJAC collaborated with the Public Safety Task Force to hold a MOSES-wide gathering about school safety. The 39 people who attended shared their thoughts about the following question: What do you feel are the most important factors for creating safety for everyone in our schools, especially our Black students, who are more likely to be responded to in ways which lead them into the school-to-prison pipeline?
Responses fell broadly into five areas: increase youth community engagement; increase the number of teachers, administrators, and support staff with enhanced training; address life stressors such as lack of affordable housing and the behavioral impacts of these; use more informed interventions, e.g., social-emotional learning and nonviolent crisis intervention; and use school resource officers (which had both proponents and opponents). RJAC was unable to come to consensus on how to narrow down these issues. However, we noted that a number of the issues are being supported through the new superintendent’s Wellness Advisory Group. These are items that MMSD is already interested in, and we have a connection to that process through Barbie’s participation in that group. We agreed we would move forward by monitoring that advisory group and identifying key topics of interest for MOSES. A small group has been meeting, with the goal of creating an issue proposal.
As part of the MMSD budget advocacy in June, RJAC members also supported these two items related to restorative justice and wellness:
- Funding the MMSD Restorative Justice (RJ) project manager, whose federal funding lapsed at the end of June, and calling for funding at least one additional school-based RJ coordinator for Capital and Shabazz high schools. These two positions were not in the proposed budget.
- 10.4 additional FTE positions for mental-health support professionals.
Barbie and Shel continued to engage with MMSD RJ program staff and RJ coaches at some of the high schools. They were part of a Community Conversation about Restorative Justice in Our Schools event in April, which was co-sponsored by Freedom Inc. and Families for Justice. Attendees learned how RJ was rolling out in the four comprehensive high schools and had an opportunity to participate in circle practice similar to what is being implemented as part of this program.
RJAC was pleased to welcome MMSD Restorative Justice (RJ) Program Coordinator Kat Nichols and her colleague Lonna Stoltfus to the November general meeting to talk about and demonstrate how RJ is being implemented in the MMSD. There was interest in follow-up activities that we hope to report on moving forward.
Transitions
In 2024, we restructured RJAC’s meeting schedule. Instead of having the task force meeting and the two working group meetings all on different weeks, we combined all meetings into one, using a variety of experimental approaches to keep us actively engaged in each area of focus while increasing our synergies and efficiency in meeting schedules. The working groups alternate taking responsibility for a focus topic for the month in which the entire task force participates. We then have breakout time for each of the task force groups to address their specific issues and concerns. This has reduced the time demand of meetings but still allows us to move forward on our issues.
As they have assumed leadership roles in MOSES, Saundra Brown and Barbie Jackson have reduced their leadership roles in RJAC. Shel Gross transitioned into the task force co-chair and then into the chair role by the end of the year. Tracy Frank is chairing the EAG. We are grateful for the work that Saundra and Barbie did in developing the task force and leading it through its infancy.
