Rep. Brent Jacobson (R-Mosinee) said extended supervision, probation and parole are tools that give people a second chance with the expectation that they will not commit other crimes. Screenshot via WisEye.

The Wisconsin Assembly passed a slate of criminal justice related bills Thursday, including a requirement to revoke probation or parole for people charged with crimes and implementing financial penalties if Milwaukee Public Schools doesn’t return police officers to school buildings.  

Republican lawmakers said the bills were necessary to improve public safety in Wisconsin. 

“Wisconsinites in almost every part of our state have seen that there are areas of our state that have sincere and real concerns,” Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) said during a press conference.

Assembly Minority Leader Greta Neubauer (D-Racine) said during floor debate that lawmakers should be crafting “smart” legislation to ensure people are safe across the state, but that the bills fall short of that goal. She said lawmakers should be focused on investing in safety.

“We can use evidence based, data driven practices to lower recidivism, to save taxpayer dollars and invest in rehabilitation and treatment to keep our communities safe,” Neubauer said. “Democrats are serious about safety, but the majority of bills in front of us today are not.”

Rep. Ryan Clancy said in a statement after the session that lawmakers spent the day on “considering badly written, badly conceived bills that will harm people and waste public resources” and said Republicans were refusing to acknowledge that mass incarceration and prison overcrowding are problems for the state. 

“It’s wildly irresponsible to even consider increasing penalties and interfering with the very few tools of leniency we have with a prison system holding 5,000 more people than intended,” Clancy said. “But here we are.”  

A couple of the bills would implement stricter requirements for dealing with criminal charges for people released from prison. 

AB 85 would require supervising corrections officials to recommend revoking extended supervision, parole or probation for formerly incarcerated people who are charged with a new crime after their release. It passed 53-43.

The Department of Corrections found in a fiscal estimate that the bill would result in approximately 6,280 additional revocation cases each year. It also found that there would be an increase in operations costs by $85 million in the first year of enactment and a permanent increased operations cost of about $245 million after the population is annualized in the second year.

Vos said that the bill should be simple. He said that people who are out on parole have been given the “privilege” of being released from prison. 

“Do you stand with the victim and the public or do you stand with the criminal who has reoffended and given up the privilege that he was briefly granted?” Vos rhetorically asked. “I think the price is worth it — $300 million to keep the people safe.” 

Jacobson said the bill is necessary to address the “revolving door” in the prison system and ensure criminals don’t have the opportunity to victimize people. He said that extended supervision, probation and parole are tools that give people a second chance with the expectation that they will not commit other crimes. 

“In far too many cases, a person released under state supervision continues the behavior that resulted in them going to prison in the first place,” Jacobson said. “It seems like common sense that someone who’s been convicted of a crime, is released under state supervision and returns to committing crimes, should have their release revoked. Far too often that is not the case.” 

Clancy said in his statement that Republicans were “openly misleading the public and their colleagues about the contents and impacts of those bills.” He noted that the bill would be “triggered when someone is merely charged with a crime” but not found guilty.

AB 66 would require prosecutors to get a court’s approval to dismiss certain criminal charges. It passed 53-44.

Rep. Alex Joers (D-Middleton) said the bill would “remove prosecutorial discretion” and impose limits on those trying to uphold the law. 

Jacobson, who authored the bill, argued it would support law enforcement and protect Wisconsinites from being victimized. He noted that Wisconsin law allows prosecutors to dismiss or amend charges or enter into deferred prosecution agreements. 

“In the Legislature, we can pass all the penalties we like. It won’t matter if the justice system won’t apply those penalties,” Jacobson said. The bill, he said, would add an additional layer of oversight and transparency by requiring prosecutors to get court approval to dismiss or amend charges in cases involving one of seven serious crimes. Those include sexual assault, crimes against a child, theft of an automobile, reckless driving resulting in great bodily harm and illegal possession of a firearm by a felon. 

“These crimes leave lasting impacts and it’s our job as officials to take these seriously,” Jacobson said. 

Lawmakers also passed a couple of bills that would increase penalties for certain crimes.

AB 61, which would increase penalties for injuring or killing an animal used by police or firefighters, passed in a voice vote. 

Specifically, the bill would increase injuring an animal to a Class H felony, which is punishable by a fine of up to $10,000 or imprisonment for up to six years. Killing an animal would be increased to a Class G felony, which is punishable by a fine of up to $25,000 or imprisonment for up to 10 years.

AB 86 passed in a voice vote. The bill would increase the penalty for child sex trafficking if the crime involved at least three victims who were children at the time the crime was committed from a Class C felony to a Class A felony. As a Class A felony, the crime could be punished with life imprisonment.

AB 89 would allow multiple acts of theft or retail theft committed by the same person to be prosecuted as a single crime, and the value of the thefts to be combined in determining the penalty. It passed 71-26, with 18 Democrats joining Republicans in support. 

School resource officers in MPS 

Lawmakers also passed AB 91, which would implement financial penalties for Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) and the city of Milwaukee if either stop complying with a state law that requires police officers in schools.

Wisconsin Act 12, which passed in 2023, provided increased state funding for local governments and also implemented requirements that MPS place 25 officers in its schools by Jan. 1, 2024. The district was late to begin following the law, and a judge recently ordered the district and city to comply with the state law and instructed the district and the city to split the cost for the officers evenly. The Milwaukee Common Council and MPS Board both approved an agreement to make this happen earlier this month. 

The bill was introduced, its sponsors said, to ensure the district complies both now and in the future. 

An amendment to the bill changed the cost-sharing from 25% for the city of Milwaukee and 75% for the district to an even split between the two entities. 

If there is noncompliance, 10% of the city’s shared revenue payment will be withheld by the state and 25% of the school district’s state aid payments would be withheld. 

MPS has not had officers in schools since 2016, and the district ended its contract with the Milwaukee Police Department in 2020 in response to student and community opposition to the practice, a point that Rep. Darrin Madison (D-Milwaukee) pointed out during floor debate. 

Madison said that when he was a student at a school staffed with officers a friend of his had an encounter that left him in the hospital. 

“Two students were fighting. School safety officers came in and de-escalated the situation. As a friend of mine went to go check on his sister, who had been involved in the incident, I got to see school resource officers grab him, lift him in the air and body-slam him on the concrete of our lunchroom floor,” Madison said. “His shoulder was dislocated and his lip was busted, and he had to undergo surgery to navigate that situation. That wasn’t the only time that this happened in our school, where students were harmed by school resource officers.”

Madison said police officers in schools are a “failed approach.” 

“Thanks to Act 12, and thanks to this bill. We’ll continue to create harms for our students… Our schools shouldn’t look like prisons. They shouldn’t work like prisons, and we shouldn’t treat students like prisoners in a space of learning, creativity and exploration. This takes Milwaukee schools in a bad direction.”

Clancy pointed out that MPS is not the only school district without officers in schools. Some other districts are Madison Metropolitan School District, Sherwood, Nicolet, Glendale River Hills.

“This is an attack on Milwaukee, and this is an attack specifically on the Black, brown, and Indigenous young people,” Clancy said. 

Bill author Rep. Bob Donovan (R-Greenfield) said that the bill is needed because Milwaukee schools continue to call the police to deal with incidents. He cited a recent Milwaukee Journal Sentinel report that found MPS averaged 3,700 police calls each year over 11 years. 

“If MPS doesn’t want cops in their schools, why do they keep calling them?” Donovan said. 

“Some say that this legislation or the penalties are not necessary. What is the alternative? The state just allow open defiance of state law? It took an MPS parent to sue the district before any movement was made,” Donovan said. “This legislation ensures this never happens again… There must be consequences for breaking the law, and how can we expect MPS to teach our children respect for authority and the rule of law when they apparently have none themselves.” 

Other bills passed include

• AB 75 to require the state Department of Justice to collect and report a list of facts about each criminal case filed in Wisconsin. It passed 54-43. Rep. Russell Goodwin (D-Milwaukee) joined the Republicans in voting for the bill. 
• AB 87 to require a person convicted of child trafficking to pay restitution immediately, and would authorize the seizure of their assets in lieu of payment. It also would require that anyone convicted of a felony must pay all outstanding financial obligations from their conviction before their right to vote is restored. It passed 53-44.

• AB 74 to require public school boards, private school governing bodies and charter school operators to notify the parent or guardian of a student who is an alleged victim or target of a school employee’s sexual misconduct. It passed in a voice vote.
• AB 78 to allow municipalities to impound a reckless driver’s vehicle whether or not it belongs to the driver. It also requires police to determine if the vehicle has been reported stolen, and if it has been, to release it to the original owner at no cost. It passed in a voice vote.

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Rep. Robin Vos and Sen. Julian Bradley testified on a bill to verify the immigration status of people being held for a felony charge. Screenshot via WisEye.

Republican lawmakers argued Wednesday that the state needs to require local law enforcement to report people with felony charges to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) if they can’t verify citizenship as a way to support public safety.

Proposed legislation would require local sheriffs to verify the citizenship status of people in custody for a felony offense and notify Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) if citizenship cannot be verified. It would also require sheriffs to comply with detainers and administrative warrants received from the federal Department of Homeland Security for people held in the county jail for a criminal offense. It comes as President Donald Trump and his administration have started to ramp up deportation of migrants in the U.S. without legal authorization and taken other steps to restrict U.S. immigration. 

Sen. Julian Bradley (R-New Berlin) and Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) emphasized during Assembly Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee hearing that their bill, AB 24, would only apply in cases of felony offenses.

“This seems to get dragged into a lot of other immigration policy, but I want to repeat individuals who are here illegally who commit felonies,” Bradley said. 

“Let’s be clear again. This proposal will make it easier to remove dangerous criminals from our communities,” Bradley said. “It’s shocking to think that a handful in law enforcement and our government would rather protect felons than work with our federal partners to stop the flow of crime and drugs into our neighborhoods.”  He added that he hoped to see bipartisan support for the bill. 

The lawmakers said  counties that don’t comply with ICE are putting other counties at risk.

Vos brought up a 2024 arrest by Prairie du Chien police of a Venezuelan immigrant who they said was affiliated with a gang and was charged with assaulting a mother and daughter. Republicans have repeatedly used the case to make political points about immigration.

“Prior to his arrest in Wisconsin, he was arrested in Minneapolis on suspicion of vehicle theft, he was booked into the Hennepin County Jail and soon released. Hennepin County, unfortunately, is listed as a non-cooperative facility,” Vos said. “Prompt ICE notification could have prevented this terrible crime from occurring right here in Wisconsin.”

A 2024 ICE report lists Dane and Milwaukee counties as “noncooperative institutions” in Wisconsin. Seven counties in the state currently have formal agreements with ICE to hold in jail immigrants without legal status. There were eight at one point, but Lafayette County ended its participation in ICE’s 287(g) program.

Under the bill, the county of a sheriff who does not comply would lose 15% of its shared revenue payments from the state in the next year. Compliance would need to be certified each year with the Wisconsin Department of Revenue.

Rep. Tip McGuire (D-Kenosha) questioned why an additional mandate on local law enforcement was necessary and pointed out the potential financial impact the bill could have on local officials. The financial impact to counties was pointed out as a concern in written testimony provided by Badger State Sheriffs’ Association. 

“Law enforcement already has the opportunity to allocate their resources as they need,” McGuire said. “That’s why we elect sheriffs. We want to put them in a position so they can make those determinations for their local community, and instead we’re mandating that they comply with the federal government in this case, and we don’t really know what the local circumstances are.”

County governments are “already struggling with challenges and staffing and their financial circumstances, and then we threaten to harm them financially if they don’t [comply],” he added. “What are we gaining?”

Public safety, Bradley answered,  adding that as long as sheriffs don’t “do what Milwaukee and Dane County are doing” then they “don’t have to worry about the claw back.” 

Vos justified the penalty with a reference to the long delay by Milwaukee Public Schools in placing 25 police officers in schools required by the 2023 state shared revenue law. He said not including a penalty in that legislation was a “mistake.” 

“If you want to enforce it, then there has to be a penalty,” Vos said. 

The bill lists fifteen documents that could be used to verify the status of a person arrested, including a U.S. passport, a birth record issued by a state in the US that bears an official seal or other mark of authentication, a certificate of naturalization and U.S. citizenship or a permanent resident card.

Rep. Jodi Emerson (D-Eau Claire) asked how quickly someone would have to produce the necessary records. 

“It’s people who are accused of a crime and not convicted,” Emerson said. “Because not everybody carries every single piece of paperwork and certainly not a notarized copy of a birth certificate around with them.”

Bradley said the bill would leave it up to the discretion of law enforcement but added he would be open to debating changes.

Emerson also asked if any consideration had been given to cases where a felony charge is potentially downgraded to a lesser charge. 

The authors said that the bill doesn’t consider that. 

“The people have already committed a crime by coming into the country illegally,” Vos said — although being in the U.S. without authorization is not a criminal offense in all cases.

 “The second crime that they would be committing would be potentially a violent felony,” Vos said. “All we’re saying is you have to notify ICE and then at that point ICE will give them all the opportunity to prove they are here legally. There is no problem with that, but that’s not really the responsibility of the citizens of Wisconsin.”

Under federal law, entering the U.S. without the approval of an immigration officer is a misdemeanor offense that carries fines and no more than six months in prison. However, in a significant number of cases, such as when someone enters the country legally and overstays a visa, it is just a civil violation.

Racine County District Attorney Patricia Hanson told lawmakers the bill is necessary to address political and policy barriers between Wisconsin’s 72 counties and to enable federal, state and local enforcement agencies to enhance safety. 

“This change in no way affects hard-working, undocumented people who may come to our jail for driving without a license. It will not even affect undocumented people who commit petty theft, who lie to the police about their identity, abuse their spouse with minor injuries, or drive drunk or impaired up to the third offense. None of those are felonies in Wisconsin,” Hanson said. “One could even argue under some of these circumstances this bill is not far enough, but it is a good start.”

Witnesses testifying against the bill said it could create fear in communities and discourage people from reporting crimes. 

Alondra Garcia, who said she is a visa holder, former DACA recipient and current Milwaukee Public Schools educator, said recent anti-immigrant rhetoric since Trump took office has been “disheartening” and “dehumanizing.”

The bill, she said, “would allow racial profiling to be acceptable in our community.”

“Immigrants, including those with legal status, will fear interaction with law enforcement, making them less likely to report crimes or seek help when needed. It will separate families and destabilize communities,” Garcia said. “Families will live in fear that a routine traffic stop or minor interaction with law enforcement could lead to detention and deportation.” 

Two groups — the Wisconsin Sheriffs and Deputy Sheriffs Association and Badger State Sheriffs’ Association — are registered in favor of the bill, according to the state’s lobbying website. Several groups are registered against the bill, including the American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin Inc, Kids Forward, Wisconsin Coalition Against Sexual Assault, Wisconsin Council of Churches, Wisconsin Counties Association and the Wisconsin Education Association Council.

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