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. Signed articles offer information and interpretations to support advocacy, but are not official MOSES positions. Links to official MOSES position statements may be found on this page.  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.

Review of Lyn McDonald Taking Action for Social Justice Through the FAST Program

by | Apr 30, 2024 | , ,

Taking Action for Social Justice Through the FAST Program: A Memoir by a Social Worker By Dr. Lynn McDonald, Founder of FAST, 2023 Reviewed by Pam Gates   Dr. Lynn McDonald is a Madison resident and social worker who in 1998 established a program called Families and Schools Together, or FAST. The purpose of FAST is to establish and strengthen bonds between schools and families, between parents and their children, and among the parents in the program. The long-term goal that gets most schools...

Criminal-Legal Reform Efforts in the Wisconsin Legislature, 2023-2024

by | Apr 30, 2024 | , , , ,

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...

Wisconsin Hears that Solitary Confinement Is Torture

by | Apr 30, 2024 | , , ,

Wisconsin Hears that Solitary Confinement Is Torture By Pam Gates   The North Hearing Room in the state Capitol was packed on April 23 to hear a powerful series of speakers on the inhumane practice of solitary confinement in Wisconsin prisons and jails. Among the 70-plus listeners were five legislators and about twice that many aides; on the panel were six people who had spent time in solitary, four clergy, and a woman who had recently lost her father to suicide in solitary.   ...

Community Forum Calls for Ending the Lockdowns and Justice Reinvestment  

by | Mar 11, 2024 | , , , ,

Community Forum Calls for Ending the Lockdowns and Justice Reinvestment   by Sherry Reames   This community forum, organized by WISDOM, EXPO, and MOSES, drew a large and attentive audience to Madison’s First Unitarian Society on Feb. 1. Longtime Madison journalist Gil Halstead emceed the discussion, which included testimonies on the current prison crisis from the perspectives of formerly incarcerated people, relatives of current prisoners, and state legislators from the Madison area....

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...