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.