Louise K. Waakaa’igan, a poet and member of the Anishinaabe (Lac Courte Oreilles Band of Lake Superior Chippewa) tribe in Sawyer County, Wisconsin, spent 16 years at the Shakopee women’s prison on the outskirts of the Twin Cities. Waakaa’igan was one of the 19 writers featured at a program called Beyond Bars: Voices of Incarceration.

The event, held on Oct. 24 at Hamline University in St. Paul, was the 15th public reading organized by the Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop, made possible by a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board.

Some of the writers, like Waakaa’igan, had been released and now have jobs on the  outside. Waakaa’igan is the event coordinator at Lac Courte Oreilles Ojibwe University in Wisconsin. Others are still incarcerated and their writings were read by other authors or by a writing mentor or instructor.

More than 500 people filled the large, open venue at Hamline University overlooking the campus. The mood was upbeat. Writers who had recently been released got standing ovations, and all who had spent time in prison received flowers.

Waakaa’igan, who has participated in several of the past events since 2020, said she started writing when she was young as a way to “survive early adolescence,” but had stopped writing as an adult until she was in prison and a volunteer group encouraged her to start writing again in 2004.

“That’s really where my voice solidified, where I had an actual writing community for the first time in my life,” she said.  “Just a circle of writers where we would give each other feedback, where we’d be able to share, learn different aspects and different pieces of the craft, which was really beneficial.”

In 2014 Jennifer Bowen, the founder of the Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop, came to Shakopee, and helped expand the prison writing program with support from a large group of mentors who give feedback to incarcerated writers and instructors who teach in the prisons and provide a “creative community” to encourage writers.

“It’s just a creative, collaborative, supporting community that recognizes the writer, whether they’re incarcerated or not, recognizes the writer as an essential part of our creative life,” Waakaa’igan said of the Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop.

Bowen spoke of her appreciation for the writers and those who came out to support them.

“The incarcerated writers you all have sent thousands, literally thousands, of notes of feedback to, have long written under pressure, under surveillance, and toward change,” she said. “They’ve told us stories about 600 days in segregation, about surviving the Khmer Rouge, about missing their daughter on her birthday every single year for 21 years. Many of those writers are home now, joining us as citizen artists on pages and stages and in the streets, showing up to offer change as artists and the art when it’s most needed, which is now. And they are building nonprofits that connect and organize and heal this community.”

The readings kicked off with a student introduction by an incarcerated writer named Andrew  (read by Tarik Dobbs) who described himself as serving more than one life sentence. He recounted not caring about writing when he joined a workshop in prison just to pass the time, but then found something more:

“Writing gave me my life back, or at least made my fate and future possible, tolerable. And more often than one might think, for someone serving multiple life sentences, enjoyable — the  kind of joy and serenity only possible when one finds a sense of purpose, a reason for being. For me, this meant, in some part, the self-expression, the catharsis that comes from any writing, as small as one word on a post note or a magnum opus on the meaning of the universe.”

Waakaa’igan read “East of Cicero,” a poem that recalls memories of abuse and struggles experienced after leaving the reservation:

“The year was 1999. They just buried half my identity. I refused to attend the ceremony after talking with Ni maama (Ojibwe word for mother). Instead, I sat in the dark, carving scars on my anemic body, dirtying my pale skin blending tears with Mad Dog 20/20, burning stale cigarettes in my nephew’s sandbox. I began driving alone back then, replacing reservation roads for out-of-state freeways…I met my first demon there on I-94 east of Cicero. He silenced me like those drunk hands did in Six Mile. I laughed as I flicked my Newport out the window. I’m not a little girl anymore. I bragged. I’ll fight back this time. It was his turn to laugh, and he did, mimicking that drunken slur that left boozy saliva on my five-year-old body? …It wasn’t until I slept in that cement cell block in Minnesota that he let my tears dry on their own. Those saltless tears pulled next to me on that cement floor pitied me, just as that demon den east of Cicero.”

Commenting on her poem, she said, “There are traumatic events in people’s lives, that I think, unfortunately, happen when we’re young that we learn how to recover and heal from, and I’m not exempt from that, and there have been things that have happened in my life that I’m still trying to recover and heal from, and my writing has definitely been a way to make sense of some of that and move on and heal in a way.”

She also read a poem written in prison about the place that shaped her:

“…I’m from Packer games on Sundays, Greyhound trips for Christmas, and Easter baskets with Karla. I’m from women with the same last name and a father none of us knew. I’m from the woods, northern, where pines and birch bark blanket both ends of tribal roads, paved and gravel. I’m from a single parent household. Michael Jackson cassette tapes, Purple Rain posters, and latchkey kids. Title V programs, commods (commodities, federal government issued food) on pantry shelves, cucumbers from Grandpa Jake’s garden and a mean ol’ dog named Turkey. I’m from ‘crying won’t change anything,’ and ‘you should have known better.’ I’m from punitive silence and where it’s normal, hugs are warm, forced Catholicism still weighs heavy on Imam’s shoulders. This is where I will always return.”

The poem, she said, was a kind of “sweet lamentation,” of the place she couldn’t return to because of incarceration.

Von Johnson, a writer recently released from prison and now on supervision, read his poem “Here Now!” describing the hardships in prison and then being released into society where he was adjusting to the freedom, figuring out who he spend his free time with,  learning new technology, enjoying his first savoy steak, but also the continued accountability to the criminal justice system living with an ankle monitor:

“I have to fill out a pass to go everywhere, even to come here tonight. Noting the time to leave, how long the drive will take, the moment I arrive, the purpose of being in each destination. My selfie game is out of control, except there’s always some address or giant logo next to my face to identify that I reached my destination, as if this ankle monitor wasn’t enough, right? How long I will stay, the minute I leave, my travel time, the next logo-slash-address field, you get the picture. I have to have permission to see my mother. Rules on how long I can hold my significant other, but I guess I’m here now. I need permission to drive a car, own a car. I’m not allowed to finance a car. Hell, get into a car. But I’m here now…”

Mark Altenhofen, called Red because he formerly had a red beard, read his  poem, “Do you remember,” written in prison upon learning a life-long friend outside was dying of leukemia:

“…Do you remember the feel of fist against flesh when we fought? The bitter tears on our lips with “I love you” and “I’m sorry” still foreign to us. Do you remember tumbling through the dust, our blood mixing with it until we fell side by side, too exhausted to do anything but laugh? Your mom compared us to Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer. We acted out the stories written until we nearly drowned…”

After his reading, Altenhofen talked about how  the Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop helps remind people in prison that  “we’re still human beings.” That  is “huge,” he said, “because it’s really easy to lose your humanity in there, and to be reminded we’re still people. We still have people that care about us, and there’s a community out here we can come back to. … It gives us something to hold onto and to look forward to, and to make ourselves better men.”

He added, “I was one of those guys I didn’t know how to talk about emotions. I treated emotions like I was a diabetic and that was sugary cereal for kids.” Writing, he said, was “a way to get to deal with the stuff I never had a chance to deal with, I never had the courage to talk to anybody about.”

Peter Schilling has mentored seven writers through the  Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop.  He said writers in prison often are processing their experience in a way that helps them cope. He noted one of his mentees wrote a Western, with wide open spaces that speak of unrestricted freedom as a counterpoint to his confinement, and another wrote a horror, modeled on a Steven King novel, transposing real struggles into the stories of fictional characters.

Michael Kleber-Diggs, a writing instructor in prisons since 2015 and board president for Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop, said the evening event represented an effort to “transcend prison walls and reach the community,” and also to “tear down the distinction between incarcerated writers and community writers.”

One of the evening’s last offerings was an original song written by a man named Will, who had recently been released. He performed  “Among these voices,” an anthem to living courageously: “Justice, burn my lips come roaring off my tongue. Set me alight to set me free. This tide has risen to make many voices one. Among those voices you’ll find me.”

The Milwaukee Police Department intends to renew its contract with Flock Safety, the multi-billion dollar producer of controversial AI-powered license plate reader cameras. In a statement, an MPD spokesperson said that the contract will be renewed “to maintain the investigative and public safety benefits the system provides.”

Flock cameras store images of traveling vehicles and their license plates in a database which can be searched by law enforcement. While police say that the cameras are valuable tools used to investigate serious crimes like gun violence, theft and kidnapping, Flock surveillance has been criticized as an invasion of privacy. Numerous cases of officers misusing the cameras for personal reasons to surveil people have emerged around the country, including in Wisconsin. 

Two of those cases played out in Milwaukee over the last year. Former Milwaukee police detective Tehrangi Chapman pleaded not guilty on Wednesday to felony misconduct in public office and misdemeanor misuse of a GPS device. Chapman is accused of  using Flock to track the movements of two people 20 times for personal reasons, and also of placing a GPS device on one of their vehicles. He’d kept tabs on these individuals even before Milwaukee adopted Flock in 2022. 

As an internal affairs detective, Chapman was involved in the investigation of Josue Ayala, a former Milwaukee officer who used Flock to track an ex-girlfriend and her new partner over 170 times. Ayala was given probation and avoided prison time. 

Both Chapman and Ayala were reported by the people victimized by their use of surveillance technology. Websites like haveibeenflocked.com helped them determine that they had been tracked. Two other cases of officers or sheriff’s deputies being charged for Flock misuse have also appeared in Kenosha County and the city of Menasha. 

As opposition to Flock grew in the community, Milwaukee PD has gone through a couple of phases of tightening and restricting the cameras. The department restricted access to the system to supervisors only, and limited the kinds of crimes that can trigger Flock use. Following a trend among some other agencies, MPD created a transparency portal describing how Flock is used, and restricted its network to use by outside agencies including  other local jurisdictions. One of the main appeals of Flock is the ability to conduct searches across a network composed of thousands of law enforcement agencies. 

MPD has also increased auditing of the system to flag suspicious uses. The Milwaukee County Board of Supervisors voted last week to remove Flock cameras from county property. In arguing to keep the cameras, the sheriff’s office attributed a 43% decline in certain crimes around county parks between 2023 and 2026 to the cameras. 

Their removal from county property follows a cascade of cities and towns across Wisconsin canceling their Flock contracts. Stevens Point, Fond du Lac County, Winnebago County, Sheboygan, Verona, Stoughton, Dane County, Sturgeon Bay, Appleton, Manitowoc, and  other  local governments have worked to cancel contracts and disable their cameras.

Frank Davis and Aaron Hicks, creators of ECHO: Every Choice Holds an Opportunity, contend that very little programming for people in prison is led by people of color or by those who have been incarcerated themselves.

Both Davis and Hicks have been to prison, served their time, and are now reaching out to  work with others who are still incarcerated and or have been recently released. 

Davis and Hicks say they see a recognition that they have something to offer from men who have spent years behind bars and are struggling to make the best of a situation they don’t want to be in.

Voices of Power is the organization Davis and Hicks created to offer their services. They are also founding members of EXPO (Ex-incarcerated People Organizing).

The two were asked to consult with Marquette University and the University of Wisconsin-Madison and to meet with staff at the Racine Correctional Institution: the warden, deputy warden, security director, a correctional officer with the rank of captain, and community members.

“Aaron and I were talking about different things we were doing out in the community, and how we feel that change, or we have seen how change happens,” said Davis, “and it happens when people who are impacted by the system come back to create programming for people in the system.”

At that initial meeting, the men were asked by Warden Robert Miller and Education Director Dan Durler to create programming to decrease the population in solitary confinement, also known as restrictive housing.

“There’s just certain kinds of messages you need the right messenger,” said Darren Wheelock, a professor at Marquette University and director of the prison education program, “and it doesn’t matter how many times someone like me may talk about, you know, the importance of having a reentry plan – ‘start thinking about how what you do affects your future chances’. I can say that until I’m blue in the face, but It’s not going to resonate in the same way that someone who spent years incarcerated, who spent a number of years of that time in the restricted housing unit. They bring all that lived experience with them.”

Wheelock was talking about the ECHO pilot program Davis and Hicks offered last spring at Racine Correctional, which he said amounted to much more than the content on accountability and being proactive.

“The goal of ECHO is to create a space where participants can discover their own strength, connect through shared experiences, and start building a path forward,” the ECHO curriculum states. “It’s about recognizing how many will define and limit them – and choosing instead to define themselves on their own terms.”

Davis said he and Hicks created a curriculum based on their years of experience of working in reentry and recovery.

After seeing the program, Warden Miller asked that in addition to those in restrictive housing, another session be offered for those in the general population who had just recently left restrictive housing

Marquette University funded the pilot project that ran from February to April. 

“The guys loved it,” said Davis. “The warden loved how it impacted the guys and how they interacted with staff. The staff inside was able to see changes in guys in just the short nine weeks that we were working with.”

Those who participated in ECHO had to volunteer. 

“Normally, what happens is when individuals are offered groups inside, there’s a little apprehension when it comes because it’s like okay, this is another group that’s created by DOC or somebody that doesn’t really understand us, and now suddenly we got to go in here, we got to act like we like it or act like we’re learning something, and there’s really no connection,” said Davis. “When we went up there in the listening session, it was an opportunity for them to see us and they wanted to hear that we’ve been impacted by the system. And once they heard that, their whole demeanor changed. They start listening. They start leaning in.”

After the first listening session, where participants asked questions, the second session addressed the history of incarceration in the United States, an open discussion followed about challenges, especially solitary confinement, along with a conversation about how those challenges do not define the people who endure them.

The third session focused on identity and how people in prison perceive themselves.

“All of the men have been labeled through the system, you know, as a convict, offender, all of those different things,” said Hicks, “and so we pose a question that’s a little bit different, and that question is, ‘who do you say that you are?’ Giving them the space and place to be able to define themselves, and how do you walk in that? And even if you don’t know who you are, we can also just talk about who you don’t want to be.”

There’s a session on mental health and what incarcerated people can do to take care of  their mental and emotional lives, what healthy relationships look like, including the one they have with themselves and how they talk about themselves.

Hicks said many reoffend and go back to prison because of unhealthy relationships that should be avoided.

“Once we get out of prison, the first thing we want to do is jump right into a relationship,” said Hicks. “So we talk about toxic relationships, and from that we build. We start talking about healthy relationships. We pose questions to them about what a healthy relationship looks like. We start to dissect it, talk about it.”

The ECHO curriculum asks the men to consider whether they are fostering healthy or unhealthy relationships in prison, even before they step outside into freedom. 

Then there is dialogue on post-release employability and housing. The program focuses on real-life skills, work and creating a resume, preparing for job interviews and understanding workplace culture.

Davis said a lot of people getting out want to live with someone they know but some of those people may be unhealthy, and Davis and Hicks challenge participants to not connect housing with toxic people. 

One of the last sessions is on vision, legacy and personal accountability. Questions explored, said Davis, include what is your vision, what is your legacy, what is your plan and how are you going to implement the plan?

The participants go through a graduation ceremony and receive a certificate of completion and are encouraged to practice what they learned in prison and start creating a healthy community in prison and make decisions that reflect their goals.

Davis said participants will be challenged and there may be justification for their outrage, for how the justice system may have meted out punishment disproportionate to  their offenses. But that has to be tempered by the longer-term goal of getting out and creating the life they desire, keeping the long game in mind.

“This is really about two men on a journey to really pay it forward and to open up eyes the way our eyes were opened,” said Hicks. 

Some of the men who participated in the program at RCI offered their feedback.

“They came at a time where I was going through a rough patch,” said Davonta Ballard. “They opened my eyes to living and making decisions; every decision you make should be beneficial to you, your goals, and your growth. It came from two individuals who’ve been in my shoes so it meant much more and they were a good example to how you can do your time and come back and be better for the world, your family and community.”

James Allen has been in and out of incarceration since 2006 and is just months away from release. He said the program made a big difference in his life.

“It was somewhat the way the guys can relate because they have been incarcerated,” said Allen. “They just didn’t talk, but also asked questions. They were different and straightforward.“

He said the session helped him think about the direction he wanted for his life and what he could do to make a difference. 

“The thing that stuck with me the most is the question of what did I care about the most,” he said. “I care most about my family.”

He added, “It was the only class I wanted to take to be a better person in life.”

David Greeno said what he learned the most is to pay attention to what he was thinking.

“I’m mostly controlling my bad ways of thinking and I am working on starting my own business when I get released from here in 11 months,” he said. “I am mostly grateful that I took the program. I am very appreciative of what Frank and Aaron are doing by coming into prison and teaching the younger generation.”

Kemondray Johnson said because both Davis and Hicks had been incarcerated Black men it gave him comfort with “opening up and being real.”

“They gave me pointers on how to be a survivor, survivor of the criminal system,” said Johnson.  “Coming where I come from, there aren’t many positive Black role models and sadly most men have to get incarcerated to learn to be a better man. Those two men are role models to me. They are people I look up to and look forward to meeting outside of these walls.”

He added, “Those guys are free Black men and make time to come here and help us and stepping into an environment they swore to never come to again! I commend them and have the utmost respect for them.”

Davis said during the sessions there was a new guard in one of the wings who reportedly was disrespectful to one of the participants, and another participant reminded the man being yelled at that, “Man, you better know your identity,” and both of the men laughed and walked away from the guard.

Warden Miller chose not to be interviewed for this article, but he did describe the pilot ECHO offering as an “awesome program we have worked hard on collaboratively.”

Wheelock said he heard glowing reports from the participants himself.

“That trial run is what has everyone really excited,” he said. “That worked way better than we had imagined. We had students that they worked with that gave glowing feedback. A number of them then transitioned from the restricted housing unit. Right, they wanted to then kind of expand their educational opportunities and start taking classes. So it was all these downstream really positive benefits from having guys that have lived experience go back inside and help guys.”

Future, fundraising

The goal now for Davis and Hicks is to provide a year of ECHO programming at RCI over five, nine-week sessions. They are looking at raising $75,000 to fund the programing. The DOC may find the funds in its budget, but the men are also holding an online fundraiser, which started Sept. 1 and will end Nov. 12. 

“This campaign is about more than sustaining a program,” the fundraising page states. “It is about closing the gap between what people inside need and what is often available to them. Many people are expected to heal, change, and prepare for reentry without consistent support. ECHO is working to change that.”

To learn more or donate, visit ECHO: Bridging the Gap

In 2009, Jennifer Olson was on parole, out of prison and under community supervision for a felony conviction, when she stopped at a friend’s house on the way to the mall. When Olson arrived, the friend was overdosing, and the friend’s brother was panicking, unsure what to do.

After attempting CPR and placing her friend in a cold shower to revive her, Olson called 911 to save her friend’s life.

The friend was placed in a medically induced coma for 37 days and lived, but during those 37 days, Olson was held in the Waukesha County Jail, incarcerated because, as a condition of her parole, she wasn’t supposed to be around criminal activity or drugs, and it didn’t matter that she had no drugs in her system, having been clean for two months after she went to rehab.

While in jail, Olson said, she lost custody of her children, and she lost her apartment and her job.

“Would I have gone to jail for calling 911 for someone having a heart attack? No.” she said. 

The Wisconsin Good Samaritan Coalition is advocating to change Wisconsin’s law to prioritize saving a life without fear of consequences for those seeking help.

Opioid overdose deaths in Wisconsin have dropped from a peak of 1459, or about four per day, in 2022, to 815 in 2024, according to state health department statistics.  “Many of those deaths could be prevented if people did not fear calling 911 to save a life,” the coalition says in a statement advocating for strengthening the state’s Good Samaritan law to offer protection from prosecution for people who survive an overdose and the people who help save their lives by calling for help on the scene. 

On Monday night, Sept. 28, the coalition met in Eau Claire at Hope United Methodist Church. A large contingent of University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire nursing students attended.

The Good Samaritan Coalition was the main organizer of the event, with support from ProSay, an advocacy organization for formerly incarcerated people  on community supervision, and WISDOM, a faith-based organization with 12 affiliates addressing systemic injustice, and WISDOM affiliates Free and Jonah, with Jonah hosting the event.

“Currently, Wisconsin law deters people from calling 911 in an overdose emergency and Good Samaritan Coalition feels everyone should feel safe to call 911,” said Lynn Buske, a representative of the coalition. Wisconsin has a Good Samaritan law, “but it offers very few protections, leaving people nervous,” she added.

Juli Bliefnick of ProSay said the issue was “deeply personal” to her because she had her supervision revoked and was sent to jail, losing her job and housing after she called 911 to save a life.

“People should not be forced to choose between their freedom and someone else’s life,” she said.

Bliefnick recounted the history of  Wisconsin’s  Good Samaritan law.

The current law, passed in 2013, grants immunity from prosecution for possession of a controlled substance to a person who summons or provides emergency medical assistance to another person suffering from an overdose. A 2017 update of the law, which is no longer in effect, also granted immunity from having parole, probation, or extended supervision revoked. The protections for people on parole, probation or supervision expired under a sunset clause in 2020.

The No. 1 reason people cite for not calling 911 in overdose cases is fear of arrest.

“I’ve experienced the grief of losing someone that I care about due to an overdose, an overdose death that could have been prevented if help had arrived in time,” said Mark Rice, the Transformational Justice Campaign Coordinator for WISDOM.

Rice said WISDOM’s goals of reducing the prison population and changing the culture and laws that result in “permanent punishment of people who have conviction records” align with the Coalition’s efforts.

“So many people fear calling 911 because of fear of arrest,” he said.  “…  the Good Samaritan Coalition is aiming to strip that fear away and to replace fear with health-centered care, and so definitely this is something that WISDOM strongly supports.”

Sarah Ferber, a regional organizer for Free, said she had several friends die of an overdose, and she had also been in situations where she had to call 911 to save a life, but she had not faced any repercussions for seeking help; however, she knew others who had called 911 and did face consequences.

Kelly Green said that when her partner overdosed, she applied six vials of Narcan to save his life, but she never called 911 out of fear of what might happen after first responders arrived.

“Calling 911 meant bringing police and emergency services to my house, and once they were there, I couldn’t control what happened next,” she said. “What would they see? What would they ask? What would Child Protective Services see or if they would get involved? What would happen to my kids? Could I lose them? Those thoughts were going through my head while someone I loved was overdosing in front of me, and I know how that sounds after the fact. Of course you call 911. Someone might die, but that’s not what fear looks like when you’re actually living it.”

Andrew Garr, executive director of Wisconsin Milkweed Alliance (a non-profit using the lived experience of members with mental health and substance abuse to “uplift and empower”) recounted his experiences of administering naloxone (Narcan is the brand name) to revive someone he knew who was overdosing and explained how to administer it. Following that, there were discussions about advocating for an update of Wisconsin’s Good Samaritan law.

Buske encouraged participants to sign a petition, talk to others about the subject and press legislators to change the law.

Bliefnick noted that other states, even some that are more conservative than Wisconsin, including Iowa, have broader, more protective Good Samaritan laws.

She also recounted recent attempts to change the law that stalled in the state Assembly, where Speaker Robin Vos didn’t allow it to come up for a vote.

More information on the Wisconsin Good Samaritan Coalition and its effort to change the law is available on the group’s website. 

 

 

Gov. Tony Evers announced a deadline of Oct. 5 as the last day for a Wisconsinite to submit an application for a pardon for a crime, before Evers’ second and last term as governor ends in January 2027. 

Distinct from a commutation or a parole order, a pardon restores rights that a person loses if convicted of a felony, including the right to serve on a jury, hold public office and hold certain professional licenses. 

In 2019, Evers issued the first pardons in Wisconsin in nine years. In a press release, he said that reinstating the pardons process and “offering over 2,000 second chances to folks across our state” has been one of his administration’s most important endeavors. 

“I encourage folks who are interested to apply by the deadline and sincerely hope to see this good work continue in earnest in the years ahead,” Evers said. 

To be eligible, a person must be seeking a pardon for a Wisconsin felony conviction and have finished any criminal sentence at least five years ago. Applicants must not have any pending criminal cases or charges in any jurisdiction or be currently required to register as a sex offender. 

Evers’ Pardon Advisory Board held two hearings on Friday; the agendas for the hearings listed 30 applicants for pardons. 

The pardon application and answers to frequently asked questions are on the governor’s website. Each applicant appears before the board for about 10 minutes, giving an introduction and taking questions from the board. The board votes whether or not to recommend a pardon for an applicant; if a majority of the board votes in favor, the application is sent on to Evers for a final decision. 

Stevens Point, Winnebago County, Fond du Lac County and Sheboygan are among the Wisconsin communities that have recently moved away from Flock license plate reader cameras. On Tuesday, city staff in Stevens Point began covering the cameras while local elected leaders determine whether they can cancel their Flock contract altogether. 

Meanwhile Sheboygan broke ties with Flock after the company reportedly attempted to sell the city back traffic data it was unaware the multi-billion dollar surveillance company was even collecting. Flock cameras capture images of vehicles and their license plates on the roadways. Law enforcement officers can search the data to see where a vehicle has traveled. 

Investigative reporting has shown that the cameras can also recognize human features. Over 5,000 agencies had Flock contracts in late 2025, creating a network of tens of thousands of cameras that can be queried simultaneously. Police often say that the technology has been invaluable in solving crimes including carjackings, kidnappings, homicide, drug trafficking and gun violence. The cameras are also used for less serious reasons such as for traffic enforcement and in policing evictions. 

“Reports are surfacing all over the country about the system being misused by municipal and state employees who have access to the data,” said Stevens Point Mayor Mike Wiza in a press release late last week. 

A few of those cases have played out in Wisconsin courts, police departments and sheriff’s offices. Four officers across Wisconsin have been charged with misconduct in public office and other offenses for misusing Flock cameras. 

Josue Ayala of the Milwaukee Police Department (MPD) was given a year of probation and avoided jail time earlier this year after misusing Flock. Cristian Morales of the Menasha Police Department was sentenced to six months in jail and three years probation for a similar infraction. In Kenosha County, former sheriff’s deputy Frank McGrath was charged with misconduct in public office last month for misuse of the surveillance technology. In July, Milwaukee police detective Tehrangi Chapman — who worked the internal affairs investigation into Ayala’s Flock misuse — was charged with misusing the system to track someone he had been monitoring since 2019, years before Flock came to Milwaukee. Chapman and McGrath are still going through court proceedings. 

Ayala, Morales and McGrath all used Flock to monitor their current or former romantic partners. The exact relationship Chapman has to the people he allegedly monitored is not mentioned in available court records. McGrath used Flock and a squad car tracking system called Polaris to monitor his girlfriend, who was also a Kenosha County Sheriff’s deputy. Chapman allegedly employed both Flock cameras and car-mounted GPS trackers. McGrath was caught after a supervisor noticed some suspicious Flock searches in an audit, while Ayala and Chapman were both reported to police by the victims themselves. 

Numerous other officers have been investigated or charged with misusing Flock around the country. In Racine County, the district attorney admitted that a few unnamed officers have been investigated for their use of Flock cameras. 

The rash of misuse is not the only thing motivating local communities to drop Flock. When the city of Verona decided to cover its cameras in February, Mayor Diaz said that while the community trusted its police department, it no longer trusted Flock Safety. At that time the first cases of misconduct were beginning to emerge in Wisconsin, and many people had expressed fears about how the federal government — especially immigration enforcement — could leverage local Flock networks for its own priorities. Trust was also broken in Oshkosh months later, after the police chief learned that the cameras could create heatmaps of vehicle movements, contrary to what a company representative had said. 

The sheriffs and police departments in Fond du Lac County recently announced they will cancel their contracts because out of state agencies had used open records requests to obtain audit data the sheriff said was confidential and in some cases linked with ongoing investigations. Journalists and other citizens nationwide had begun requesting Flock audit data from local police departments to learn how the cameras were being used. 

In 2025, a Wisconsin Examiner analysis showed that at least 221 law enforcement agencies were using Flock in Wisconsin. Many of the searches used vague search terms such as “investigation,” “suspicious,” or non-law-enforcement terms such as “cooch,” or single characters such as “.” or “s”. Some of these vague search terms have appeared in confirmed misconduct cases. Officers in other parts of the country have also  used Flock for controversial reasons, such as tracking women suspected of traveling out of state to get an abortion. 

Flock Safety has struggled to adapt to canceled contracts and misconduct investigations. Although the company has released new features including requiring case numbers when searching the database, fixed options for search terms, and the ability to flag suspicious searches, it has also worked to hide information in the audit data such as officers’ names. Flock Safety has claimed that people have used the audit data to identify undercover officers. However, the information which Flock is making harder to view is also the very information that allowed citizens and journalists to detect instances of misconduct.

Winnebago County, Neenah, Menasha, and Chetek have each canceled a Flock contract, are considering it or have covered up their cameras. In Chetek, the police chief responded to public criticism of Flock cameras by threatening to run background checks on citizens who disagreed with his use of the cameras. Other Wisconsin communities including Kaukauna, Sturgeon Bay, Appleton, Dane County, Stoughton and Manitowoc which have also canceled their Flock contracts. 

Other communities have chosen to heighten oversight of their Flock cameras In Milwaukee, County Executive David Crowley asked that all Flock operations on county property be paused until new transparency and oversight measures could be developed.

Milwaukee County Sup. Justin Bielinski, who is also chairman of the Committee on Judiciary, Law Enforcement, and General Services, has also called on the Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Office to disable its Flock network. “Residents should not have to wait for another disclosure before we act,” said Bielinksi. “Even if you have confidence in the Sheriff’s Department’s use of Flock, the question remains: do we trust Flock itself with this information?”

The Milwaukee Police Department has restricted its Flock network from other local agencies, limited access to the system to supervisors only, and launched a new Flock transparency portal. The portal notes that data captured by Flock cameras in Milwaukee is only retained for seven days, and that there were 983 “search sessions” over the last 30 days. It also keeps track of the number of “hot list hits” over the last 30 days. Hot lists are lists of vehicles which law enforcement have flagged in the system. When a camera sees the flagged vehicle, a notification goes out to police in the area. The Milwaukee police transparency portal  does not track the number of vehicles detected, unlike a transparency portal released by the Green Bay Police Department.

“This effort underscores the commitments MPD has made in partnership with the Mayor to establish appropriate guardrails for the use of this technology while providing greater public understanding of how Flock [Automatic License Plate Reader] technology is used to support public safety,” the Milwaukee department said in a press release. “MPD remains committed to transparency, accountability, and the responsible use of technology. Through this new resource, MPD is continuing its efforts to provide the public with meaningful information about the tools we use to support the safety of the Milwaukee community.”

People in the community continue to push back against the cameras. Last Thursday, dozens of residents filled a Fire and Police Commission meeting to capacity in Milwaukee. An overflow room was opened to accommodate all the people who showed up to testify, unanimously rejecting Flock and calling for the city to cancel its contract. Speakers argued that Flock is a form of indiscriminate mass surveillance which can and has been used in abusive ways by police. Many of the speakers expressed deep frustration with the commission, city government and police, saying that they’d called for an end to Flock for months only to see some of their fears realized. 

Napoleon Jones, 32, was one of those people. Although Jones is from Sussex, he came to the Milwaukee FPC meeting to describe his  experience of Flock surveillance. Jones, a Navy veteran, was stopped by a Waukesha County Sheriff’s deputy after filming a traffic stop. Jones was arrested and taken to jail, only to be released without charges. When he filed a complaint about the deputy’s conduct, according to a federal lawsuit, Jones became the target of a  Flock search by that deputy, who was  directed by his supervisor to conduct the searches. 

“When I first found out I was just super surprised,” Jones told the Examiner. “I never thought it would happen to me. And when I found out and I got the records and seen how many different searches there were, I was at a loss of words because it’s hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of searches and the network is so big on these Flock cameras.” Jones added that “I drive all around. If this guy really wanted to put together a timeline of where I’m at, or who I know, or whose house I’m at, he could have done it.”

He added, “I drive past these things all the time. Everyone does.”