Madison Organizing in Strength, Equity, and Solidarity
for Criminal Legal System Reform

News and Commentary

This page displays timely announcements, news reports, and articles written by MOSES members previously published in our newsletters, yearbook, or venues. The main display shows all items with the most recent first. You can select particular topics, working groups, or types of information to see the articles of one type, with the most recent first. Also see the Publications & Resources page for links to whole newsletters and yearbooks as well as other resources for research.

School Safety Forum

by | Mar 1, 2024 | , , ,

RJAC and PSTF Gather for School Safety  By Shel Gross The Racial Justice for All Children (RJAC) task force, in collaboration with the Public Safety task force (PSTF), hosted a MOSES-wide gathering about school safety on Jan. 23 via Zoom.  We had 39 attendees, including 18 members of RJAC and/or the PSTF, 10 additional MOSES members, two MOSES donors, and nine guests and/or collaborators.  Eric Howland and Shel Gross led a Quaker-style query process that was very well received.  Participants...

WISDOM Leadership Retreat Held Jan. 17-18

by | Mar 1, 2024 | , , ,

WISDOM Leadership Retreat Held Jan. 17-18 by Pam Gates   MOSES members turned out in force for this retreat, which was held at the Green Lake Conference Center near Green Lake, Wis. Deborah Adkins, Talib Akbar, Saundra Brown, Phil Carlson, Barbie Jackson, Jessica Jacobs, Rachel Kincade, James Morgan, and I attended from MOSES. Along with other WISDOM members from around the state, we learned more about diversity, Integrated Voter Engagement, and each other – and about the specific issues...

Experts Speak on Correction – Parole, Prison, and the Possibility of Change, by Ben Austen

by | Mar 1, 2024 | , , , ,

Experts Speak on Correction – Parole, Prison, and the Possibility of Change, by Ben Austen By Pam Gates and Sherry Reames            A good-sized crowd turned out on Feb. 1 to hear a panel organized by the UW Law School on issues surrounding parole: its pros and cons, how it works, how it doesn’t work, and how it could work. The panelists were journalist and author Ben Austen; Wisconsin ACLU staff attorney Emma Shakeshaft; John Tate II, Wisconsin Parole Commission chair 2019-’22, and Dant’e...

Get to Know Our 2023 Gala Honorees

by | Mar 1, 2024 | , , ,

Get to Know Our 2023 Gala Honorees a Little Bit Better!  By Sherry Reames   Heleema Berg's current job title is Recovery Support Specialist at the Wisconsin Resource Center (WRC), a maximum-security institution which provides the best opportunities in Wisconsin for incarcerated people to receive mental health and substance use treatment. Drawing on her own lived experiences of poverty, teen pregnancy, domestic violence, and substance and sexual abuse, as well as several years of...

End Life Sentences for Juveniles

by | Mar 1, 2024 | , , , ,

End Life Sentences for Juveniles   By Margaret Irwin   The State of Wisconsin is inching its way toward passing a bill that would end life sentences without the possibility of parole for juveniles. Current law allows a judge to sentence offenders between 13 and 17 to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole or community supervision, no matter how many decades they will serve.   In December 2023, a bipartisan group of lawmakers introduced Senate Bill 801/Assembly Bill 845. It...

Review of The Worst Thing We’ve Ever Done by Carol Menaker

by | Mar 1, 2024 | , ,

The Worst Thing We’ve Ever Done: One Juror’s Reckoning with Racial Injustice By Carol Menaker, She Writes Press, 2023 Reviewed by Pam Gates   In 1976, Carol Menaker, a young white woman living in Philadelphia, was summoned for jury duty in a high-profile 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 of a park policeman, who had...

Featuring a New MOSES Member: The Crossing!

by | Mar 1, 2024 | , ,

Featuring a New MOSES Member: The Crossing! By Margaret Irwin   Welcome to The Crossing – a new member of MOSES!  A multifaith, progressive student ministry at UW-Madison, its home is a beautiful, welcoming building that has stood on University Avenue since 1917. The Crossing is affiliated with and supported by three Protestant denominations: the United Methodist Church, the United Church of Christ, and the American Baptist Church. It welcomes students of any or no religious background to...

Organizer’s Corner

by | Mar 1, 2024 | , ,

Organizer’s Corner                                    By James Morgan   Greetings MOSES! Once again, I’d like to take this opportunity to thank each of you for your time and dedication to MOSES as we move forward in 2024 to address criminal-legal system reform and the racial disparities in education and housing that contribute to mass incarceration and mass supervision in Wisconsin.    During my early tenure, we increased our membership by welcoming Middleton UCC, the Crossing UW...

Summary of JSRI Activities in 2023

by | Feb 1, 2024 | , , ,

JSRI spent 2023 working on the Jail (no surprise) and behavioral health. Much of the Justice System Reform Initiative (JSRI) work in 2022 was focused on the jail. This year we had a long stretch where the jail was not an issue - but spoiler alert - it roared back in December. JSRI used the time with fewer jail decisions to continue our focus on diverting people experiencing mental/behavioral health crises from the criminal legal system. Dane County Jail At the end of the 2022 County Exec...

Book Review: What’s Prison For?

by | Dec 18, 2023 | , , ,

What’s Prison For? Punishment and Rehabilitation in the Age of Mass Incarceration By Bill Keller, New York: Columbia Global Reports, 2023  Reviewed by Pam Gates Everyone should read this book. And I do mean everyone, at least every American. It’s short (159 pages, including footnotes), it’s concise, and it tells in a nutshell what the purpose of prison should be. And most American prisons fall far short, Keller says. We in MOSES agree with him, I’m sure, but if we could get everyone to read...