Criminal-Legal Reform Efforts in the Wisconsin Legislature, 2023-2024
By Sherry Reames
Looking through the detailed records of this session on the legislature’s official website (docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/2023), I found some notable setbacks for the cause of criminal-legal reform, but also many reasons to feel encouraged.
First, the bad news. At least two regressive bills were passed and signed into law this spring, despite the efforts of WISDOM and its allies.
- 2023 Act 254 sounds like a minor bureaucratic change (“counting convictions and findings for the purposes of the sex offender registry and notifications”), but this law will significantly increase the number of individuals who will now be burdened for life with the obligation to wear – and actually pay a monthly charge for – GPS monitors that mark them as criminals and can trigger their arrest by malfunctioning.
- 2023 Act 230, nicknamed “Johanna’s Law” after the victim in the notorious Balsewicz murder case, strikes a blow at most of the remaining Old Law prisoners by adding new restrictions and requirements that must be satisfied before anyone who has committed “a serious violent felony” can be released from incarceration to parole or extended supervision.
Things could easily have been worse, however. A number of other regressive bills failed to gain much traction, including AB76/SB69, which would have made it even harder for individuals with a felony conviction to regain their voting rights, and AB310/SB309, which would have automatically revoked parole or supervision when a former offender was charged with a crime.
On the positive side, this legislature passed two bills that attempt to address specific problems with incarceration and re-entry.
- 2023 Act 233, enacted into law in February 2024, establishes a mechanism to set up and operate community re-entry centers, via contracts between nonprofits and the DOC (Department of Corrections), to increase employment opportunities for those leaving prison.
- 2023 Act 229, enacted in March, attempts to improve the response to the mental health needs of incarcerated people by prison staff, in part by authorizing emergency transfers of those in “active psychosis” or other crises.
A number of other reform bills garnered enough bipartisan support to become likely candidates for passage this year, if the Assembly hadn’t abruptly called an end to its session two weeks early. One measure that never received a final vote was AB845/SB801, the bill (discussed in our February/March Newsletter) that would have banned life sentences without parole for juvenile offenders and potentially allowed the reconsideration of extreme sentences that current prisoners received in their teens.
Among the other promising bills left on the table were measures to expand TAD (Treatment Alternatives and Diversions) programs (AB17/SB11), to expunge certain criminal records (AB37/SB38), to expand earned release for some prisoners with employment-readiness training (AB181/SB170), and to establish an “immersive work opportunity program” with realistic working conditions and reasonable wages to help pave the way for re-entry (AB462/SB461).
Despite the apparent failure of those bills in the current session, their supporters can take heart from the number of Republican legislators who were willing to line up behind them and even take the lead as authors and sponsors in some cases. Whether or not their party retains a majority in the next session, we should remember the names of those potential allies (helpfully listed for posterity in the record of each bill on the legislative website) and the particular issues on which they have shown an interest.
The most active Democratic supporters of criminal-legal reform should not be taken for granted either, of course. As one would expect, they tend to be progressives from Dane County and Milwaukee. Their names can also be found alongside the bills they cosponsored, those they amended or tried to amend, and those they actually wrote – most notably, the long series of bills introduced in November and December 2023 in response to the revelations about the deteriorating conditions at Waupun and Green Bay.
Those progressive conditions-of-confinement bills– Senate Bills 729, 730, 731, 745, 751, 763, 772, 776, 796, 844, 862, and their Assembly counterparts– would require the DOC to make particular improvements in the way incarcerated people are treated, mandating minimum standards for many small necessities – showers, access to recreation, visits, fresh air, and hygiene products – and setting a few more ambitious goals, like air conditioning and minimum wage for their labor.
Reform measures which fell short this year are likely to be introduced again in the next session of the legislature. Members of MOSES should be watching, a year from now, to see how they are shaping up and what citizens like us can do to build support for them.