Justice System Reform Initiative Task Force
Our purpose is twofold. We advocate for reforms that keep people out of Dane County’s criminal legal system and jail. We advocate for a safe, humane, and appropriate sized jail.
We do research and seek best practices to reduce racial disparity, unsafe and inhumane treatment, and the arrest and incarceration of individuals with mental health and substance abuse issues. We seek a system that is equitable, fair and humane.
Please join us via zoom at 6:00 pm on the 2nd Thursday of each month
To confirm current month meeting times and zoom link request instructions, see the MOSES Calendar
Our Working Groups
Our purpose is to improve the response to individuals having a mental health or behavioral health crisis and divert them from the criminal legal system and the jail.
We support the establishment of a 24/7 Crisis-Triage center, CARES (the alternative to police responses for behavioral health 911 calls), mental health and call diversion workers at the 911 center, and expansion of services and treatment for Huber program.
Our purpose is to improve and implement diversion programs that keep people out of the criminal legal system, the Dane County jail, and Wisconsin prisons.
We attend and testify at Community Justice Council and other relevant county meetings and engage with diversion program staff to learn and advocate for reforms.
Our purpose is to encourage information sharing with the Dane County Jail, to support the Jail Consolidation Project, and to monitor that promised reforms are being made.
We talk with jail staff and attend county meetings to advocate for appropriate jail staffing, safety, reduction of solitary confinement, programming, medication and mental health treatment, reentry services, and other reforms that focus on rehabilitation.
Our Issues
Create a Fair Criminal Legal System
Eliminate racial disparity in the criminal legal system, especially in jail and prison.
Continue to advocate for the expanded collection and use of data to better manage and evaluate the criminal legal system.
Support diversion programs that keep people out of the criminal legal system and jail/prison.
Advocate for the Community Justice Council and the new Office of Justice Reform to continue implementing reforms of the criminal legal system.
Create a Humane Criminal Legal System
Support the Jail Consolidation Project for a safe and humane jail facility.
Provide community-based responses to mental health crises.
Advocate for reforms within the jail to eliminate solitary confinement and to better prepare residents to reenter the community.
Spend less money on the criminal legal system and more on community services and treatments.
Reform the Huber program to ensure that services and treatments are readily available to sentenced individuals who are in the community with electronic monitoring.
Our People
More About Us
What We Believe
- Racial equity should be achieved across the entire criminal legal system.
- The criminal justice system should be guided by the use of publicly available data and information for understanding what is happening, for accountability, and for measuring outcomes.
- Solitary confinement should be eliminated or greatly reduced.
- Arrests and incarceration should be reduced by having a coordinated system of community treatment for substance abuse, mental health treatment and for people with developmental disabilities.
- The number of arrests should be reduced along with people initially apprehended by police, but diverted prior to booking.
- Efforts should be made within the criminal justice system to reduce sentences in ways that do not compromise public safety, but which emphasize rehabilitation, reduce incarceration and include wide ranging systemic reforms such as access to drug treatment, training, and employment to support personal accountability.
- Dane County should provide resources to those incarcerated to reduce recidivism.
- The criminal justice system, including the Dane County Jail, should not be used to generate excess revenue source.
- People charged with crimes or sentenced should be placed in the least restrictive setting possible, while still ensuring reasonable public safety and restorative justice for victims and former offenders.
- People leaving jail should have supports so that they can change their lives in positive directions.
- Increased resources will be sought for community treatment for substance abuse, and for people with mental illness, and developmental disabilities.
- Dane County should build off of its own successful efforts at improving the criminal legal system and should seek out the best evidence-based practices from around the country.
- Dane County should identify and encourage the implementation of immediate actions that can be taken as well as long-term solutions.
- Dane County should have a safe and secure environment for those incarcerated.
See also our document detailing our desired future conditions for mental health the Dane County Criminal Legal System
Accomplishments
Helped to shift the dialog in Dane County to focus more on reforms of the criminal legal system. Many of the changes we have advocated are being implemented. These include improvements in the jail, non-police response to mental health crises, improvements of data collection, and expansion of diversion programs.
History
We started in 2014 with the goal of evaluating the plan for a new Dane County jail. This led us to create the Justice System Reform Initiative Task Force to advocate for changing the entire system.