On Thursday July 18,
Forum for Understanding Prisons (FFUP) called
a
day of action in Madison for people serving inappropriately long
sentences because they were sentenced under the “old law” before
Truth in Sentencing (TIS) came to Wisconsin in 2000.
Such people are
still required to go before the parole commission, while everyone
else has a pre-determined sentence. Prior to TIS, the parole
commission would often release people to community supervision after
doing 25% to 30% of their sentences, especially if they’d completed
programs and had made it through incarceration without serious
incidents.
In recent years, the
parole commission has been granting release less than 5% of the time,
usually based on criteria totally unrelated to the imprisoned
person's conduct, program completion or mindset. This runs counter to
the sentencing judge’s intentions and undermines the design and
purpose of the parole system.
On our day of
action, we visited legislators and delivered a petition calling for
rules changes under Statute 227.12. The rally component was
canceled due to rain. Statute 227.12 authorizes groups to petition an
agency requesting it to promulgate new rules. The agency must respond
to the petition by either accepting the rules, or rejecting them in
writing.
FFUP developed the proposed changes based on
input from people serving under the old law. These rules changes will
close loopholes, remove made up standards, and replace vague
subjective language that the parole commission routinely uses to deny
people release. You can read the full petition
here.
Governor
Tony Evers has stated an intention to fix the old law problem, which
received much attention after the
53206
documentary and Baron Walker’s
extraordinary
release. Evers appointed John Tate, a former social worker and
reformer from Racine to be Parole Commissioner, which led many to
believe that reform and relief was on it’s way.
Unfortunately,
Tate has been overly cautious. The commission continues to deny
people release based on unfair criteria, such as awaiting programs or
security level transfers, factors which the Department of Corrections
(DOC) controls. As a result, aging people continue to be denied
parole and to serve much longer than their original sentencing
judges' intended.
We delivered the
rules change petition to Commissioner-designee Tate and gave copies
to DOC Secretary-designee Kevin Carr and Governor Evers. Governor
Evers’ policy adviser Katie Domina received the petition and a letter from Davinia, a
woman whose fiancee was recently denied release. Katie listened
to our comments and stories and said she would share them with the
Governor, but the decision on the rules change was up to the impacted
agency, that is, the parole commission. We reached out to the
Commissioner by phone and email and will follow up this week.
Under statute 227.12
if the commission rejects the rules change petition, they must do so
in writing. That means our action requires them to either fix the parole rules,
or publicly admit they aren't willing to do so.
In addition to the
petition delivery, we also met with legislators. One explanation for
Commissioner Tate's slow progress may be that he fears his
confirmation being blocked by the republican-controlled senate.
Thursday we started the day with legislative visits to demand his
confirmation as well as the confirmation of DOC Secretary Carr. We
met with two legislators and aides from 3 others to discuss this and
a variety of other issues.
Senator Van
Wanggaard (R-Racine), the chair of the senate Judiciary and Public
Safety Committee said he supports these confirmations, that he knows
John Tate and approves of the work Carr has been doing. He expects
the confirmations will go through in September, allowing Carr and
Tate to do their job without fear of partisan retaliation or
legislative gridlock.
We discussed a
variety of other issues with Senator Wanggaard, from crimeless
revocations to sentencing lengths, to programming and conditions
inside the prisons. We were glad to explain the negative impacts of
crimeless revocations and investigation holds, and he sounded
supportive of reform.
At the same time, certain views
expressed by Senator Wanggaard were very disappointing to hear from
someone in his position. For example, he said that people on
community supervision “have no rights”, which is both factually
untrue and morally repugnant. People on community supervision have
restrictions placed on their rights, but some rights are still
protected. Moreover, the restrictions that do exist are a serious
problem.
There are over
60,000 people on supervision in Wisconsin, over 7 million in the US.
Restricting so many people’s rights creates a legally designated
second class of citizens who are vulnerable to abuse and subject to
greater infringement on their liberties by government agencies.
People on such restrictions are disproportionately black, brown and
indigenous because those are the communities targeted by the prison
system. For the head of a senate tasked with overseeing and creating
prison policy to blithely overstate the situation by saying these
tens of thousands of racially designated people “have no rights”
shows either a sad lack of understanding or a disturbing support for
the institution of racial caste in our society.
Senator Wanggaard
also seemed unaware and confused about fundamental aspects of the
prison system. He objected to the suggestion that people are
sometimes forced or pressured into taking plea bargains when they’re
not guilty. He refused to grapple with the fact that most people
eventually do come home from prison. In fact, 85% of those currently
incarcerated will be returning to their communities in the next five
years. When asked if traumatizing such people in prison would
negatively impact public safety outcomes for those communities,
Senator Wanggaard interrupted the question, shook his head and told a
story about a dog training program available to a tiny fraction of
people held in one prison. We’re accustomed to such reactions from
people who have not deeply considered the prison system, its effects
or impacts. It was disturbing to see such willful ignorance it from
someone with actual authority over prison policy.
