The parents of an eighth-grade girl killed in the Tennessee school bus crash last month filed a $5-million wrongful death lawsuit alleging distraction and recklessness on the part of the driver and negligence and lack of oversight on the part of the Clarksville-Montgomery County School System.
Zoe Davis was 13 and a student at Kenwood Middle School when she died in the March 27 collision. Her classmate Arianna Peterson, 13, also died.
The lawsuit filed April 2 calls for a jury trial and seeks the maximum dollar amount allowed but not to exceed $5 million plus court costs.
Tennessee tort law generally caps the amount a school district can be held liable for at $700,000 for bodily injury or death of all persons in any one accident or $300,000 for any one person. School district employees are immune from lawsuits including those involving negligent operation of motor vehicles, unless proven that the employee failed “to exercise or perform a discretionary function, whether or not the discretion is abused.”
The Davis family’s lawsuit names school bus driver Sabrina Ducksworth. The lawsuit claims she failed to follow her training and “acted with less than and/or failed to act with ordinary and reasonable care in the operation of the school bus.”
The filing also claims Ducksworth operated her school bus while fatigued or distracted and failed to exercise due care, obey traffic laws and keep in the proper lane.
Investigation Continues Amid Lawsuit
The Tennessee Highway Patrol and the National Transportation Safety Board continue to investigate. NTSB said on its website a preliminary report is expected by the end of this month. Duckworth reportedly remains hospitalized following several surgeries. School Transportation News learned Duckworth broke both of her legs and suffered internal injuries.
Ducksworth’s family told local reporters she may have suffered a stroke when the school bus veered across a double yellow line, into the oncoming lane and collided nearly head-on with a Tennessee Department of Transportation dump truck. A local news report also indicates a review of Duckworth’s personnel file shows a current prescription for blood pressure medication. She had driven for Clarksville-Montgomery County School System since July 2021.
The Davis family’s lawsuit also claims the school district did not perform an adequate pre-employment inquiry into Ducksworth’s fitness for employment as a school bus driver and that the hiring practices “fell below the applicable standard of care.” The lawsuit also alleges the school district failed to adequately train or supervise Ducksworth.
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Evers signed a bill that legalizes online sports betting in Wisconsin. Evers delivers his 2026 State of the State address. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)
Gov. Tony Evers signed bills into law this week that will legalize sports betting, provide funding to the University of Wisconsin system to help student athletes get paid for the use of their name, image and likeness as well as measures that address internet crimes against children.
AB 601, now 2025 Wisconsin Act 247, will legalize online sports betting in the state. This will be an expansion of access to sports betting, which has been legal in Wisconsin since 2021, but only in person at tribal casinos.
Following a legal framework first used in Florida, the law will allow for the servers that manage the bets to be housed on tribal land. The law was designed this way because the Wisconsin constitution requires that any legal gambling be managed by the state’s federally recognized Native American tribes.
The bill faced a complicated path through the state Legislature. At first it sped through the hearing process, only to be pulled from the Assembly floor calendar. It finally received a vote about three months after it passed committee. When it passed the Senate in a 21-12 vote, with some opposition from both Democrats and Republicans, one Republican senator said the bill would be the reason Republicans lose their majority in this year’s midterm elections. The bill also faced opposition from lobbying groups representing the country’s largest online sportsbooks.
Evers said he signed the bill because it is his obligation to “always to respect the sovereignty of Tribal Nations in Wisconsin,” and because it will provide an opportunity to put revenue paid into the state into mental health programs and efforts to combat the opioid crisis. However, he said, he also had “reservations” about signing the bill.
“This legislation is the beginning of a conversation, not the end of one,” Evers said in a statement. “The real work begins today.”
Online sports betting will not become immediately available since the tribes and the state will need to renegotiate their gaming compacts. The governor is tasked with the responsibility of negotiating compacts with the tribes under the Wisconsin Constitution. A new agreement would then need approval from the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs.
Before the bill passed the Legislature, Evers had expressed concerns about getting support from all of the tribes.
All 11 tribes then signed a letter saying that each was on board with the legislation, according to WisPolitics.
“Each of the 11 Tribes must now work diligently — and together — to shape the future of sports betting in Wisconsin,” Evers said. “What I will not accept is a plan that fractures this opportunity into unequal pieces, allowing some Tribes to reap great benefits while leaving only crumbs for others. An approach that exacerbates long-standing inequalities among Tribal Nations is not good for Wisconsinites or Wisconsin.”
Wisconsin is the 33rd state to legalize online or mobile sports betting since a 2018 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a 1992 federal law that had barred betting on football, basketball, baseball and other sports in most states.
“A joint venture — with each Tribe contributing, and each Tribe benefiting in equal shares — is gaining traction in these discussions, and I strongly support pursuing this or a similar model,” Evers said in his statement. “This is an opportunity to avoid the mistakes of past compact amendments that left some Tribes and their members in poverty while only lifting up a few.”
Student athlete name, image and likeness
Evers also signed a bill this week to help University of Wisconsin student athletes in getting paid for the use of their name, image and likeness (NIL) and to provide the UW system with funds so it can help provide NIL opportunities to those athletes.
AB 1034, now 2025 Wisconsin Act 203, provides $14.6 million annually in state funds to go towards debt service for the costs of UW-Madison’s athletic facilities, $200,000 for the UW–Milwaukee Klotsche Center and $200,000 for the UW-Green Bay soccer complex. Providing the state funds is meant to free up other funds so the UW can provide students with opportunities for NIL agreements. The bill passed with nearly unanimous support in the Assembly with a 95-1 vote, but in the Senate the margin was much closer with a 17-16 vote.
Evers partially vetoed the bill to remove language related to the funds going to “maintenance costs” saying he wanted to allow greater flexibility in how the UW system can use the funds.
“I object to the potential confusion created by referring to ‘maintenance,’ and my partial veto will better reflect the intent that the funding alleviate existing debt service. I also object to how this bill unnecessarily restricts the use of funds appropriated for athletic facilities within the University of Wisconsin System,” Evers wrote in his veto message. “I believe that greater flexibility is necessary to ensure this funding can be used effectively and allow the system to maximize the state’s investment.”
The law codifies some policies that UW-Madison and other campuses already have in state law, including prohibiting NIL contracts that conflict with school policies and providing money in exchange for athletic performance, as well as those that require student athletes to endorse alcoholic beverages, gambling, banned athletic substances or illegal activities or substances. It also includes a requirement that student athletes disclose third-party NIL deals they enter.
UW schools are also going to be able to contract with organizations that can help student athletes find NIL opportunities.
The law also includes language exempting records related to the “generation, deployment, or allocation of revenue generated by an intercollegiate athletic program” from the state’s open records law in an effort to “protect competitive interests and student privacy.” Open records advocates expressed concerns about the provision as the bill was debated. UW representatives said the provision would only be used to clarify what is already the UW’s existing practice of denying access to student athlete NIL agreements and certain university records that are related to NIL strategy, allocation, revenue generation.
Addressing internet crimes against children
Evers signed four bills into law to help combat internet crimes against children.
The laws build on previous efforts to address online crimes affecting children. Last year Wisconsin passed a law that defined “sextortion” as a crime. Lawmakers started working on that legislation after 15-year-old Bradyn Bohn from Kronenwetter, a village outside of Wausau, died by suicide after being targeted online by a perpetrator who convinced him to share nude photos of himself and told him that he needed to send money or face major consequences. He suffered through hours of threats and was coerced into sending money before his death.
AB 923, now 2025 Wisconsin Act 215, will allow for victims of a sexual extortion to sue their perpetrator for damages including for emotional distress, punitive damages, attorneys’ fees and investigation costs. In the case that someone died by suicide due to sexual extortion, a victim’s family would be able to file a wrongful death suit.
Sexual extortion has become a growing threat in the U.S. in recent years. From October 2021 to March 2023, the FBI and Homeland Security Investigations received over 13,000 reports of online financial sextortion of minors that included at least 12,600 victims, mostly boys, and led to at least 20 suicides.
The other bills give the DOJ additional resources and tools to address internet crimes against children.
AB 957, now 2025 Wisconsin Act 216, provides $400,000 in each year of the 2025-27 state budget to the state Department of Justice (DOJ) to enforce laws against internet crimes against children and AB 958, now 2025 Wisconsin Act 217, provides four new DOJ positions that will focus on internet crimes against children.
AB 964, now 2025 Wisconsin Act 21, gives the attorney general administrative subpoena authority in the case of a sextortion crime if the victim was a child at the time of the violation.
AB 966, now 2025 Wisconsin Act 219, will require the DOJ to conduct a children’s online digital safety awareness campaign and provide materials on digital safety awareness to schools for free.
Other bills Evers took action on
AB 1027 was vetoed. It would have instructed the Wisconsin Department of Health Services to turn over data related to SNAP to the Department of Health Services to provide to the U.S. Department of Agriculture information. Evers said in his veto message that he objected “to sharing Wisconsinites’ most sensitive personal data, including their Social Security numbers, without the federal government having to meaningfully demonstrate how Wisconsinites’ personal data will be appropriately secured, will not be able to be accessed by broad swaths of federal employees, and will not be shared inappropriately both within and outside of the federal government.”
AB 759, now 2025 Wisconsin Act 240, was signed into law. It will make Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) status holders in Wisconsin eligible to apply for occupational licenses.
AB 373, now 2025 Wisconsin Act 241, was signed into law. It creates a $2,000 nonrefundable income tax credit for parents of a stillborn child. The credit is meant to provide financial relief to help parents with expenses associated with the stillbirth.
AB 918, now 2025 Wisconsin Act 202, makes adoption a required topic to be covered for school districts that choose to offer human growth and development instruction, also known as sex education. Wisconsin school districts are not required to offer human growth and development instruction.
SB 782, now 2025 Wisconsin Act 245, extends a penalty for falsely texting 911 to report an emergency. Violators could face fines between $100 and $600 and/or up to 90 days in jail for a first offense. A subsequent offense committed within four years of the first would be a Class H felony.
An Indianapolis gas pump shows prices over $4 a gallon on Tuesday, April 7, 2026. (Photo by Niki Kelly/Indiana Capital Chronicle)
WASHINGTON — Spikes in energy prices caused by the U.S.-Israeli war in Iran drove up inflation for Americans in March, according to the latest consumer price index figures released Friday.
Costs jumped 0.9% in March compared to the previous month — that’s up from the 0.3% increase in February.
Prices for all items together, including food, energy, shelter and other commodities like vehicles, rose by 3.3% from a year ago. That’s the highest annual jump since May 2024, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics historical data.
Fuel costs drove the spike, with gasoline and fuel oil together rising 10.9% in March compared to the previous month. Singled out, gas prices jumped 21.2% in March. The cost for airfare, largely driven by jet fuel prices, rose 2.7% in March, up from the 1.4% jump in February.
President Donald Trump launched the joint war in Iran with Israel on Feb. 28. In response to the intense bombing campaign that killed the country’s supreme leader and numerous senior officials, the Iranian regime effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow passage in and out of the Persian Gulf vital to the transport of one-fifth of the world’s petroleum.
As of Friday, Americans were paying $4.15 on average nationwide for a gallon of regular gas, according to AAA. The average for diesel across the U.S. is $5.68 per gallon.
Prior to the war, a gallon of regular hadn’t topped $3 all year.
Iran’s de facto takeover of the Strait of Hormuz by threatening to strike any tankers, other than a handful from friendly countries, has caused the largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market, according to the International Energy Agency.
Despite a tenuous ceasefire agreed to Tuesday evening Eastern time, Iran is still controlling the strait. Ten oil tankers transited the waterway Tuesday, and only one on Wednesday, according to the latest figures available from the Joint Maritime Information Center, which tracks tankers and cargo ships worldwide that are transmitting location data.
Prior to the war, roughly 140 vessels daily flowed freely through the Strait of Hormuz.
Dems pounce on affordability issue
Democrats blamed Trump Friday for higher inflation, as affordability is emerging as perhaps the single-most important issue ahead of the 2026 midterm elections in November that will determine control of Congress.
Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin said the president is “pushing working families to the brink.”
Unleaded gas is $3.99 per gallon at the Exxon at 129 Lee St. W in Charleston, West Virginia on April 8, 2026. (Photo by Leann Ray/West Virginia Watch)
“Trump promised to ‘lower prices on Day One,’ and instead he waged an unhinged trade war and started an unpopular war with Iran — and what have Americans gotten in return? Nothing except even higher prices. Americans are sick and tired of this president putting his own interests first and using their hard-earned dollars to fund his war instead of making health care more affordable or expanding access to child care,” Martin said in a statement Friday morning.
White House senior deputy press secretary Kush Desai responded to the inflation figures, saying the president “has always been clear about short-term disruptions as a result of Operation Epic Fury, disruptions that the Administration has been diligently working to mitigate.”
“Although gas and energy prices are seeing volatility, prices of eggs, beef, prescription drugs, dairy, and other household essentials are falling or remain stable thanks to President Trump’s policies. As the Administration ensures the free flow of energy through the Strait of Hormuz, the American economy remains on a solid trajectory thanks to the Administration’s robust supply-side agenda of tax cuts, deregulation, and energy abundance,” Desai wrote in a statement Friday morning posted on social media.
Other costs
The price index for food consumed at home decreased 0.2% compared to the previous month, but increased 1.9% from a year ago.
The costs of fruits and vegetables rose 1% in March compared to the previous month, but prices for meat, poultry, fish and eggs declined 0.6%, according to the latest BLS figures.
The price index for items minus food and energy rose 0.2% in March, matching the increase in February. The cost of all items, less food and energy, rose 2.6% over the past 12 months.
Regent President Amy Bogost and Regent Timothy Nixon said that Rothman had been told about the changes the regents wanted to see. Their decision to let him go, they said, was not made lightly and came after he failed to make those changes. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)
A state Senate committee put off taking action despite threats from lawmakers to fire unconfirmed members of the University of Wisconsin Board of Regents after two regents shared more details Thursday about the decision to fire former UW President Jay Rothman.
While the regents were legally prevented from sharing specific details about the firing, they said, they described their sense that Rothman moved too slowly to act on pressing issues including developing a UW policy on artificial intelligence.
The UW Board of Regents voted unanimously in a virtual meeting Tuesday to fire Rothman, who had refused to leave his position voluntarily. The decision took effect immediately and the the search for the next leader has already begun. Rothman, who will get six months of severance pay, told the Associated Press after the vote that he was “blindsided” by the ousting but wasn’t going to challenge it.
Republican lawmakers had come to the defense of Rothman after the news broke about the effort to oust him. Sen. Patrick Testin (R-Stevens Point) said lawmakers should reject the regents’ nomination if they fired Rothman without cause. The Senate Technical Colleges and Universities committee quickly scheduled Thursday’s public hearing and executive session on the consideration of the nominations of the ten unconfirmed Gov. Tony Evers’ appointees, including Bogost and Nixon.
Sen. Rob Hutton (R-Brookfield) said at the start of Thursday’s meeting that the decision required an explanation.
“Transparency is the foundation of public trust, and when decisions are made without explained justification, it further erodes confidence, not just to the Board of Regents, but in the institution itself,” Hutton said, adding that lawmakers could provide oversight of state entities. “We are faced with a sudden leadership shake-up at risk, creating instability at a time when the chancellor turnover is high and our flagship university is losing its CEO.”
Regent President Amy Bogost and Regent Timothy Nixon said that Rothman had been told about the changes the regents wanted to see. Their decision to let him go, they said, was not made lightly and came after he failed to make those changes. They also said that his decision to take his complaints public was harmful to the UW system.
Bogost has served on the Board for the last six years, including as president since 2024. Nixon has served as a regent for the last two years. Neither has received a confirmation hearing, which has become standard procedure for the Republican-led Senate, which has left most Evers appointees unconfirmed.
Until the meeting, the regents hadn’t given any additional details about the decision to fire Rothman, other than that the decision came after an annual review was conducted by Bogost and that Rothman was “not without notice” and the process was not “sudden.”
Evers stood behind the regents’ decision in a statement released during the meeting, saying the choice was their and that they decided to make a leadership change, “nothing more, nothing less.”
“Republican lawmakers should resist their temptation to turn this into a political conversation, because it isn’t one,” Evers said. “The UW Board of Regents is not supposed to be an extension of any politician or political party. The Regents are responsible for doing what’s best for our UW System, and they should be able to do their jobs without political interference from elected officials.”
Evers also warned it would be a “mistake” if the lawmakers used it as an opportunity to fire people and that that would “jeopardize our continued bipartisan work this session.”
“It’s pretty simple: I trust that the Regents are doing what is best for students, faculty, staff, and our UW System — lawmakers should, too.”
At the start of the hearing, Bogost told lawmakers that she would be as transparent with them as she legally could.
“President Rothman knows exactly what he is doing. He is a sophisticated professional who understands that personnel matters are confidential,” Bogost said. “The confidentiality surrounding his evaluation was not arbitrary… It is what law requires and is what our obligation is to these universities, and yet, President Rothman, who understands all of this, has chosen to use that constraint as a shield — making public statements, he knows I cannot deny, and framing a narrative he knows I cannot correct.”
Rothman was a Milwaukee lawyer and CEO of the law firm Foley and Lardner before being chosen to serve as the UW president in 2022.
Bogost told lawmakers that she would also be willing to walk the committee through the details of the conversations held in closed session with Rothman and the decision to fire Rothman if he waived his confidentiality.
Sen. Brad Pfaff (D-Onalaska) asked why Bogost thought he hadn’t waived his confidentiality.
“I believe that his objective is to be able to get his narrative out and be one-sided…He knows the truth, and he understands what this is all about, and we were hoping that he would move on,” Bogost said. “To do the media circuit that he’s on denigrates our wonderful universities, and that makes me really sad, because I know that he worked tirelessly for the universities, and I really was hoping to celebrate his past accomplishments… it’s unfortunate that he’s taking that path.”
Before firing Rothman, the regents had offered him the opportunity to resign. Rothman refused, saying he hadn’t been given clear reasoning for his firing and that he thought he had accomplished a lot during his tenure as president.
Nixon also said offering at-will employees the option to leave voluntarily is standard procedure within the UW system and in private businesses. As an example, he noted former Gov. Tommy Thompson, who served as interim president of the system between 2020 and 2022 and voluntarily stepped down from the position. He also noted James Langdon, who, according to WisPolitics, wrote in an email that Rothman fired him in a similar way from his position as vice president of administration.
Nixon added that the same practice applies to corporate CEOs, who are routinely let go by companies that don’t want to harm their brands. “You try not to have these public blow-ups, alright, and so nothing here in my mind [is] unusual, and not only that, it follows UW practice.”
In a statement, Rothman said his recent evaluation from Bogost was “overwhelmingly positive.” However, during the hearing, Bogost said that when giving reviews it is typical to “give at least four positives to every negative,” which is what happened with Rothman.
“He was very disheartened by those… I was surprised. These were things that we tried to work on. It was not sudden,” Bogost said. “Mr. Rothman knows that it was ongoing situations that we had many discussions with him about.”
Bogost said there is not an evaluation document, but that she took notes and delivered the evaluation in person to Rothman.
Bogost said Rothman was the right person to lead the UW system as it sought to deal with a tough financial and operational situation. During his time as president, Rothman oversaw the “right-sizing” of campus budgets and the closure of campuses. Nixon said when it comes to other accomplishments Rothman has touted, he is “a bit like the rooster crowing and then taking credit for the sunrise after.”
As the UW system is addressing other pressing issues, the regents said Rothman was too slow to act.
Nixon noted that U.S. News and World Report ranked the 50 most innovative universities in the U.S., and the only Wisconsin school on the list was Marquette University.
“Thank God, one higher education institution in the state has made the list,” Nixon said. “Change is not Mr. Rothman’s strong suit, yet change is what we desperately need.”
Nixon said there was a “lack of urgency” coming from Rothman, adding that coming from a law background he tends to move deliberately to ensure that every i is dotted and every t is crossed.
As an example, Nixon said the regents started asking for a system-wide policy on artificial intelligence in November, but they still had not received one.
“We can’t take a year and six months to decide and think about every single issue. This is no different than moving on to a new quarterback — no matter what you thought of the previous quarterback or what they did,” Nixon said.
Nixon said he had also spoken with Rothman about reassigning some of the over 500 employees who work for the UW system administration to campuses, but there had not been changes.
Sen. Rachael Cabral Guevara (R-Fox Crossing) thanked Nixon for giving the committee some concrete reasons for its decision rather than staying in the “gray zone.”
The regents said that the timing of the decision was partly the result of state budget negotiations and the implementation of the state budget. In the most recent state budget, the UW system received a boost in state funding, which came as a result of negotiations between Evers, Democratic and Republican lawmakers and advocacy efforts from UW stakeholders. Republican lawmakers had initially sought a cut to the UW budget.
At the end of Thursday’s hearing, the committee delayed its vote on whether to recommend confirming the nominees.
Hutton told reporters afterwards that there was more information the senators needed to consider and it would have been “premature” to vote. He said that he wants to see more documents related to Rothman’s evaluation and hear from more of the regents.
“Based on some of the information we requested from the board president, really thought that was beneficial to receive that information, let the committee go through that a little bit more, maybe ask some additional questions before we go to exec[utive session],” Hutton said, adding that Bogost was “very willing” and “cooperative” when it came to providing information.
Hutton said that there would need to be a conversation with the Republican caucus leadership on whether the full Senate, which has adjourned for regular session work, will come back to take a long-delayed vote on the regents’ nominations.
A member of the PAWS program at Stanley Correctional Institution (Photo courtesy Wisconsin Department of Corrections)
The Wisconsin Examiner’s Criminal Justice Reporting Project shines a light on incarceration, law enforcement and criminal justice issues with support from the Public Welfare Foundation.
Elliott Landrum, 46, has spent decades of his life in the Wisconsin prison system. He told the Examiner that he was a handler for Louann, a puppy who went on to graduate and become a hearing assist dog.
“We can still make something out of our lives, and still do something to help someone else, and I think that’s the biggest part about the PAWS program,” Landrum said, referring to Wisconsin’s Prisoners Assisting With Service Dogs (PAWS) program.
Can Do Canines matches service dogs with clients to help with mobility issues, hearing loss, seizures, autism or type one diabetes, executive director Jeff Johnson told the Examiner last month. He said that the organization partners with five Minnesota prisons and four Wisconsin prisons.
“I also frequently hear from inmates that this is — I don’t know if redemption is the right word, but this is a way to give back that they haven’t really had before in their lives,” Johnson said. “They also get the unconditional love of a dog, and some of them haven’t had unconditional love from anything or anyone before this.”
Last month, Can Do Canines published an article about a woman named Colleen and her hearing assist dog Louann, who were matched together last year.
Colleen said that Louann loves people, the article states, and while Louann is trained to alert Colleen to a wide variety of sounds, her favorite alert is probably the doorbell. The article lists Jackson Correctional Institution, where Landrum participated in the dog training program, among those who made the partnership possible.
Colleen and Louann (Photo courtesy Can Do Canines)
“I’m grateful having her,” Colleen said, according to the article. “Besides having her helping me, she keeps me busy.”
Of the four prisons in Wisconsin that partner with Can Do Canines, Fox Lake, Stanley and Jackson Correctional Institutions are medium-security prisons, while Chippewa Valley Correctional Treatment Facility is minimum-security. Earlier this year, Stanley Correctional reached a milestone: a decade of training service dogs.
“For the inmate handlers, it teaches them people skills,” Johnson said. “They’re dealing with dogs — like patience and positive reinforcement and persistence and teamwork, ‘cause they have to work together as a team. And for many of these guys, those aren’t personal strengths of theirs going in.”
Johnson said there is essentially a separate part of each prison for the dog program and handlers. Each dog has two incarcerated handlers, who live together in a cell with the dog.
Lindy Luopa, puppy program manager at Can Do Canines, said over email that dogs are typically raised in a prison program for approximately eight months. At around the three and six-month marks in the prison program, they go out for two-week breaks in host homes, so they can hear the sights and sounds of a home environment and be exposed to a variety of public experiences.
Prison staff screen incarcerated people to decide who gets to be involved, Johnson said.
Incarcerated handlers work on all of the foundation skills of a service dog, Johnson told the Examiner, including sitting, staying, retrieving items and cleaning up items and putting them in a container.
The Wisconsin Department of Corrections stated in a 2018 press release that Can Do Canines was decreasing the cost to train service dogs by partnering with the DOC, increasing the number of dogs who could be trained and placed with people.
“We serve far more people each year because of the prison program and save money because these volunteers provide valuable training that we might otherwise have to hire more staff to provide,” Johnson told the Examiner.
Johnson said that after the dog’s prison stay, there is much more training involved to become a service dog, but the incarcerated handlers put them on that path.
(Video uploaded April 13, 2017 to Vimeo by Barbara Wiener.)
Can Do Canines didn’t have a prison program for a period of time due to the COVID pandemic, Johnson said.
“That was very difficult,” Johnson added. “You only have so many volunteers.”
William Ward, who is incarcerated at Stanley Correctional, said he participated in Stanley’s program from February 2020 to February 2025 and wants to see the dog program in more prisons. He said that while the dog program doesn’t involve a large percentage of prisoners, it provides the participants with something constructive to do at a prison where opportunities are limited.
A banner at Stanley Correctional Institution for a graduation ceremony for service dogs (Photo courtesy Wisconsin Department of Corrections)
Dogs behind bars around the state
Since 2016, nearly 300 dogs have received service dog training at Stanley Correctional, according to a Facebook post from the Wisconsin Department of Corrections last month.
For about three hours a day, handlers train the dogs on obedience and other skills with the help of Can Do Canines, the department said. More than 180 incarcerated people have volunteered in that role.
The DOC reported an overall success rate of over 71% for those dogs. The 10-year anniversary was recognized earlier this year during a celebration with Can Do Canines clients, staff, volunteers and other guests, the department said.
Chippewa Valley Correctional Treatment Facility reported that 31 puppies were successfully trained during fiscal year 2025. And in February of last year, six puppies came to Fox Lake Correctional Institution.
“We welcomed Shelby, Smudge, Skyler, Scout, Sailor and Solly to FLCI where they began their training,” Fox Lake reported.
Jackson Correctional Institution in Black River Falls reported raising 36 puppies in fiscal year 2025. In addition, the prison has worked with 50 3-year-old “finishing” dogs for a three-month program, as of Jackson’s annual report for fiscal year 2025.
Staff and incarcerated people at Jackson celebrated the graduation of their first group of Can Do Canines dogs in 2018, according to a 2018 DOC press release.
“The participating inmates feel a sense of pride in their accomplishments and are extremely grateful to others for the chance to give back,” Lizzie Tegels, the warden at Jackson at the time, said in the press release. “This program has also had a very positive effect on the climate at our institution.”
Randy Forsterling, a formerly incarcerated man, connected the Examiner with Landrum and three other men who said they are current or former participants in prison dog training programs with organizations such as Can Do Canines. One of them, Michael Lappen, was released from prison in 2023 and is currently on community supervision.
Like Landrum, Lappen said he was in the dog program at Jackson Correctional Institution. He said he was also in a dog program at Prairie du Chien Correctional Institution, and plans to volunteer with R-PAWS, a wildlife sanctuary program involving volunteer members that cares for injured and orphaned wildlife for release back into the wild.
Dogs for veterans
Can Do Canines isn’t the only group working with incarcerated people to train dogs behind bars. In 2022, WISN 12 News reported on incarcerated people volunteering with the Journey Together Service Dog program at Oshkosh Correctional Institution.
Shaun Lynch told the Examiner he was in Oshkosh Correctional’s Journey Together program from January 2017 until April 2019.
“When I got to Oshkosh in 2016 I hadn’t seen a dog in nearly 20 years,” Lynch said in a message to the Examiner over the messaging app GettingOut.
Lynch has been in the state prison system since 1998 and has a life sentence, according to online Department of Corrections records. He said that he is going to school for his associate degree in small business entrepreneurship so that he can start his own program if he ever gets out of prison.
According to Lynch, he helped start a program called Paws for Patriots at Redgranite Correctional Institution, where he has been incarcerated since 2019. He said he started in March 2022 and is still in the program.
According to its most recent available report, Redgranite Correctional partners with Patriot K9’s, an organization that aims to help veterans “win the war against suicide, depression and anxiety” through service dogs and connections to needed resources.
Patriot K9’s website says that the dog training programs provide incarcerated people with employable skills, such as social skills and problem solving, and help make the transition to life outside prison go more smoothly.
“I hope I am able to inspire others to look beyond themselves and do something to give back, whether it’s training dogs or just giving back in some way that can help make a difference in someone’s life,” Lynch said. “I also hope that it shows people that no matter what you’ve done in your life you can change for the better and make a difference in someone’s life.”
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