The Milwaukee Police Department has explicitly banned officers from using masks or other facial coverings to hide their identities, Milwaukee Common Council members announced on Monday. 

“We met with the police chief, delivered the message of what our constituents were demanding, and he acted. This is about responsiveness, accountability and trust,” Alderperson JoCasta Zamarripa said in a statement that quoted four members of the council, including council president José Pérez.

The statement said the new policy is aligned with the council’s “ICE Out” public safety plan. 

Last month, officials announced a package of local ordinance proposals that aim to prepare the city for a possible surge in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations. The package included a requirement for all ICE agents to be unmasked when interacting with the public in Milwaukee. 

The department updated the uniform requirements in its standard operating procedure, effective Monday. 

The Milwaukee Police Department procedure states that facial coverings and masks are allowed in certain circumstances. These include but are not limited to the following: protection to prevent exposure to hazardous materials, protection on assignments to prevent the spread of diseases or viruses and protection from cold or extreme weather during assignments that require a staff member to be outdoors for periods of time. 

“Note: Facial coverings and masks shall not be used for the purpose of concealing identity,” the procedure states. 

In a statement to the Examiner, the police department expressed gratitude to elected officials, the Milwaukee Police Association and the Milwaukee Police Supervisors Organization, who worked in collaboration to make the modification to the operating procedure, the unsigned statement said, adding, “We are always better together.”

On Friday, lawmakers in the Wisconsin Assembly voted in favor of a bill seeking Medicaid coverage for people in Wisconsin prisons and jails. Supporters hope it will help recently incarcerated people avoid addiction and overdoses. 

Rep. Shelia Stubbs (D-Madison) said her experience working for the Wisconsin Department of Corrections has given her firsthand knowledge about the impact AB 604 will have. She said it will improve access to treatment and case management and ease the financial burden on justice-involved Wisconsinites. 

The bill would give incarcerated people a greater chance of maintaining sobriety and preventing overdose after release from prison, Stubbs said. After a Minnesota study about the causes of death of recently incarcerated people, researcher Tyler Winkelman said that “substance use is clearly the main driver of death after release from both jail and prison.”

Medicaid is prohibited from paying for services provided during incarceration, barring some exceptions involving inpatient services or an eligible juvenile under 21 years old. The National Association of Counties published a toolkit critical of the “inmate exclusion policy,” arguing in part that it unfairly revokes federal health benefits from people who are being detained prior to trial and have not been found guilty.  

The bill would pursue a path offered by the federal government that allows for a partial waiver of the policy. 

The proposal directs the Department of Health Services to request a waiver to conduct a demonstration project; 19 states have approved waivers and nine states including Washington D.C. have pending waivers, as of November 21. 

A waiver would allow for prerelease health care coverage under the Medical Assistance program, which provides health services to people with limited finances, for up to 90 days before release of an eligible incarcerated person. Coverage would be provided for case management services, medication-assisted treatment for all types of substance use disorders and a 30-day supply of prescription medications. 

The bill garnered support from lawmakers from both parties and from WISDOM and EX-Incarcerated People Organizing, groups that advocate for incarcerated people. 

The Assembly’s vote to seek the coverage for incarcerated people comes on the heels of its vote to accept a federal expansion of Medicaid coverage for women for one year after they give birth. 

For the waiver, if the state seeks federal Medicaid coverage for services that are currently funded with state or local dollars, the state has to reinvest any savings in state or local funds. Savings would be invested in programs to increase access to or improve the quality of health care for incarcerated people. 

In the Department of Corrections fiscal estimate, the DOC said that in fiscal year 2025, the agency spent $500,000 on the 30-day medication supply dispensed for incarcerated people pre-release, $300,000 on pre-release medication assisted treatment medications and $3.9 million on the Opening Avenues to Reentry Success (OARS) program. The OARS program supports the transition from prison to the community of incarcerated people living with a severe and persistent mental illness who are at medium-to-high risk of reoffending. 

The agency estimated it may have over $750,000 in potential cost savings if the waiver is approved and implemented. 

Because not all incarcerated people will qualify, the estimate assumes that half of the medication supply and medication assisted treatment medications costs will be reimbursed, as well as 10% of the OARS program costs. There may be other costs DOC can have reimbursed.

AB 604 would require the Department of Health Services to submit the waiver request no later than Jan. 1, 2027. 

The bill now goes to the state Senate. Supporters of the bill include the Wisconsin Medical Society, the National Alliance on Mental Illness Wisconsin, the Medical College of Wisconsin and the Wisconsin Counties Association. 

In the Wisconsin prison system, incarcerated mothers still lack a program that would allow physical custody of their children, a year after a court ruling affirmed that a state law requires the Department of Corrections to take steps to bring together incarcerated moms and babies. The ACLU is suing to try to force the issue.

Wisconsin statute 301.049 calls for a “mother-young child care program” allowing women to retain the physical custody of their children during participation in the program. It says a woman entering the program must either be pregnant or have a child less than a year old. 

Alyssa Puphal and Natasha Curtin-Weber are plaintiffs in the case against the Wisconsin Department of Corrections (DOC), and are represented by the American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin and Quarles & Brady LLP. 

While a judge sided with the plaintiffs last year, they are attempting to re-open the case, saying the DOC has not implemented the program required by law. 

“At this moment, each and every woman in DOC’s physical custody with a baby under one year old sleeps apart from her child every single night,” the Feb. 4 filing stated. 

Nine states have prison nursery programs, and a few others are considering or developing a program, Stateline reported in January. 

According to Wisconsin Public Radio, DOC communications director Beth Hardtke wrote in an email that because the Legislature turned down a budget request from Gov. Tony Evers to expand earned release to allow mothers to spend more time with their children outside of prison, the department is now being required to expand the mother-child program to include incarcerated mothers despite a lack of additional funding and of statutory changes that would allow more incarcerated women to take part.

DOC had previously argued that it was meeting the requirements of the 1991 statute by facilitating contact between babies and mothers on probation, extended supervision and parole. But a year ago, in February 2025, Dane County Circuit Court Judge Stephen Elkhe disagreed, ordering DOC to provide a mother-child program inside Wisconsin prisons.

“Reforming the criminal justice system to make our communities safer is a key priority of (Gov. Tony Evers’) administration and that includes corrections reforms such as a mother-young child program for incarcerated women,” Hardtke wrote, according to WPR. 

The ACLU motion called for remedial sanctions to get the agency to comply with the court order, including a daily fine for each day the contempt of court continues. The organization asked that the money from the fines be set aside to support the mother-child program, and claimed that a growing fine would ensure resources for the program. 

“With each month that passes, Defendants’ failure to act violates state law and violates the Writ,” the motion stated. 

When the lawsuit was filed in June 2024, Puphal had already given birth while incarcerated, while Curtin-Weber was pregnant. As of the filing of the lawsuit, their requests to participate in the mother-young program were refused or had not been responded to, according to a complaint published online by the ACLU. 

Puphal and Curtin-Weber were released on extended supervision last year, according to online DOC records. 

The state law enacted in 1991 states that the department shall provide the program for females who are prisoners or on probation, extended supervision or parole and who would participate as an alternative to revocation. 

When a person is released from prison to supervision, they must follow certain rules. If their supervision is revoked, the person will either be returned to court for sentencing or transported to a correctional institution. 

The department contended that it was in line with the law and that the word “or” in the statute indicated the agency could either provide the program for incarcerated mothers or for mothers on supervision.

DOC argued that it had a mother-child program for women on probation, extended supervision or parole who are pregnant or have a child under the age of one, and that it didn’t have to offer the program to incarcerated mothers. Wisconsin’s state budget includes $198,000 for a mother-young child program. 

Ehlke sided with the plaintiffs. He said they had established a clear right to be included in the class of people the department must consider for the mother-child program. 

The ACLU motion on Feb. 4 stated that the court had ordered the department to establish the program “forthwith,” or without delay, and  moved to reopen the case, arguing there has been “no meaningful progress” since that order despite three meetings between department representatives and counsel for the plaintiffs. 

“To avoid another year of excuses — or worse, another 35 years — Plaintiffs ask the Court to reopen this case for the purposes of enforcing the Court’s Writ,” the motion stated. 

The plaintiffs’ filing includes a letter and a list of questions sent to the Department of Corrections in December. It states that the Ostara Initiative offered to create a mother-young child care program for DOC at no cost to the agency in April 2024 and has continued to approach the agency. It described the Ostara Initiative as “a credible non-profit that DOC has already partnered with for other services.” 

The Examiner reached out to the Department of Corrections for a response to the plaintiffs’ filing, and also asked if the claims about Ostara were correct and if the department is planning to partner with Ostara on the program. Hardtke wrote that it is the department’s practice not to comment on ongoing litigation. 

A telephone scheduling conference in the case is scheduled for March 2.