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Derek Williams, 51, has been spending a lot of time thinking about certain numbers.

He committed 12 armed robberies in and around Milwaukee 30 years ago. In 1997, the North Side native was sentenced to 15 years in prison for each robbery – a total of 180 years.

In 2023, a Milwaukee County judge cut that sentence in half after Williams stopped an attack of a correctional officer who was being stabbed with a sharpened pen. The reduction in his sentence made Williams eligible for parole. 

But Williams, who was transferred to Sturtevant Transitional Facility from Oakhill Correctional Institution in September, has learned that parole eligibility is not the same as being released. Now, he worries about another number – how many days he will have to wait to go home to his family. 

“I’m seeing a parole process that really has no clear path on what a person’s supposed to do,” Williams said. “They create an ideal, and at every turn it’s another road going left or right.”

Frustrations with the parole process

In Wisconsin, only people who committed their crimes before Dec. 31, 1999, can become eligible for parole. 

Those sentenced for crimes committed on or after Jan. 1, 2000, fall under 1997 Wisconsin Act 283, more commonly known as the Truth-in-Sentencing law. These people must serve the entirety of their prison sentence. 

Those sentenced before Truth-in-Sentencing took effect become eligible for parole after serving one-quarter of their prison sentence or after reaching their mandatory release date, whichever comes first.

Before Williams’ sentence was reduced, he would have been eligible for parole in 2042.  

Since his sentence reduction in 2023, Williams has gone before the Wisconsin Parole Commission twice – in May 2024 and June 2025. 

Both times, the commission said he wasn’t ready for release.

State regulation requires the Parole Commission to consider several factors when deciding whether to grant release: acceptable conduct in prison; completion of required programming; reduction of risk to the public; sufficient time served so release does not depreciate the seriousness of the crime; and an approved release plan.

For both of his parole hearings, the Parole Commission said Williams’ conduct and participation in programming were adequate. 

Yet both times the commission deferred Williams’ parole to be reconsidered at some later date. The commission cited an “unreasonable risk to the public” and said Williams had “not served sufficient time for punishment.”

Williams said he doesn’t understand how the commission arrived at these conclusions, especially after the Milwaukee County District Attorney’s Office and the judge who modified his sentence reduction said he had already served enough time. 

“In terms of the armed robberies themselves, we were most acutely concerned with the level of violence,” said Paul Dedinsky, an assistant district attorney for Milwaukee County, during the sentence modification hearing. “I found them to all be extremely serious and necessitating an enormous amount of incarceration, but we believe that end has been met.”

Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Jack Davila agreed. 

Williams’ frustration with the parole process is not surprising, said Laura Yurs, a Remington legal fellow at the University of Wisconsin Law School. 

“Because parole release is discretionary, it is impossible to predict and tends not to operate as a standardized set of steps,” Yurs said. “For example, what is deemed ‘sufficient time for punishment’ can vary widely from person to person – even when the crime of conviction is the same.” 

Parole trends

In recent years, fewer people in Wisconsin are being granted parole, according to Department of Corrections data.

An average of 37 people were granted parole in 2023 and 2024, compared with an average of 144 a year from 2017 to 2022, the data show.  

From Jan. 1 to Aug. 31 of 2025, there have been 234 parole hearings for people convicted in Milwaukee County. Out of these, 19 people were granted parole, 201 were deferred and 14 were denied. 

As of Aug. 31, 43 people had been granted parole in Wisconsin in 2025, out of 551 hearings. 

Williams hopes to add his name to the list of people granted parole, but that is still in question. 

‘Not an entitlement’

A spokesperson for the Wisconsin Parole Commission said in an email to NNS that a parole is “not an entitlement.” He said all five parole requirements must be met, including reducing the risk someone poses to the public and that a person has served enough time. 

He said risk reduction is determined using several factors, including sustained good conduct, completion of required programming, transition through lower security levels and the approval of their release plan. 

“This requirement is met when the risk to the public upon release is considered not unreasonable,” the spokesperson said.

For time served, the commission spokesperson said the requirement is met “when the amount of time served is sufficient to not diminish the seriousness of the original offense.”

Red tape?

Williams, whose next parole hearing is scheduled for January, disputes the commission’s assessment. Nevertheless, he is trying to follow its guidance leading up to his next hearing.  

Williams said this is easier said than done, given the lack of clarity about parole. 

Williams said he is also worried about being deferred again because of a lack of coordination within the Department of Corrections. 

After his most recent parole hearing in June, commissioners endorsed a transfer for Williams to a less restrictive facility – called a Wisconsin Correctional Center System facility – where he would be able to participate in work release. 

Programming and activities at these facilities place an emphasis on life after release and only house people requiring minimum security.

About a month after his June parole hearing, the Program Review Committee at Oakhill could not reach a consensus on whether to transfer Williams, according to paperwork he received from Oakhill staff.  

After learning of the split decision, Rikki Williams, Derek’s wife, raised their concerns to Jason Benzel, director of the Department of Corrections’ Bureau of Offender Classification and Movement.

In an email, Benzel told Rikki to “be patient and allow the process to occur.” 

She then contacted Jared Hoy, secretary of the Department of Corrections.

“I understand your frustration, I really do,” Hoy wrote in an email to Rikki. “If we cut corners for Derek and rush the process, or if I intervene and put my thumb on the scale, that would not be fair to the many, many others who go through a similar process.”

These explanations ring hollow for Rikki.

“Everyone tells us to ‘trust the process,’ ” Rikki said. “What process?” 

Recent progress for Williams

Wayne Olson, the warden at Oakhill, and another Department of Corrections administrator reviewed the Program Review Committee’s split decision on Williams’ transfer. They approved a transfer but not to a Wisconsin Correctional Center System facility. 

Instead, on Sept. 16, Williams arrived at Sturtevant Transitional Facility, which houses people requiring minimum or medium security. 

Olson and the DOC administrator chose Sturtevant because it can provide a more “gradual transition” from Oakhill, according to the paperwork.

Off-site employment is available at Sturtevant, the paperwork stated, “at the discretion of the warden,” and requires a “period of monitoring on-site.”

As Williams waits in limbo, he often returns to a particular irony. 

“I made a life-or-death decision in a heartbeat,” he said. “But it’s taken years for anyone to decide what to do with my life.”

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Jonathan Aguilar is a visual journalist at Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service who is supported through a partnership between CatchLight Local and Report for America.

His 180-year prison sentence was cut after saving a guard’s life. Years later, he’s still waiting to go home. is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

The Journey to Justice Bus at Madison Christian Community Church on Sunday, Oct. 12. | Photo by Frank Zufall/Wisconsin Examiner

Solitary confinement, the practice of putting someone in isolation in a small cell, is not a topic you expect to hear discussed at church on Sunday.

But on Oct. 12, at the Madison Christian Community, was a stop of the 18-city, nationwide Journey to Justice Bus Tour, that included two panel discussions focused on the topic, one with four state legislators, including two candidates for governor.

Visiting the Journey to Justice bus, standing in a bathroom-sized solitary jail cell replica and hearing the real-life stories of those who had spent part of their lives confined in such spaces, visitors gained a visceral appreciation of the United Nations declaration that punishing people with more than 15 consecutive days in solitary is a form of  torture.

In the Hollywood presentation, the practice is reserved for hardened criminals, a safeguard against violence that’s necessary to keep good order and discipline.

But the reality is that small procedural violations, medical conditions, mental health crises sometimes even pregnancy are reasons people inside our prisons end up isolated for multiple days at a time.

Those who have experienced solitary confinement, otherwise known as restrictive housing or segregation, say it is traumatizing and even years after they’ve been released from prison, they are still reliving dark memories.

The Solitary and Conditions of Confinement Legislation panel at the church included four Democratic state legislators, including gubernatorial hopefuls  Sen. Kelda Roys and Rep. Francesca Hong, both of Madison. Roys, an attorney, has served on the Judiciary Public Safety Committee and worked on the Innocence Project when she was a law student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Milwaukee area Reps. Darrin Madison and Ryan Clancy also participated. Madison is a former organizer for Youth Justice Milwaukee and a member of the Correction Committee. Clancy sits on the Corrections Committee and has served on the Judiciary and Law Enforcement Committee.

Jen Ann Bauer, who spent five and a half years in prison and is currently serving the remainder of her sentence on community supervision said she was put in solitary confinement at least four times, with the longest lasting 90 days.

“When people hear you’re in solitary confinement, they think discipline, and it is so much more to the detriment of human beings,” she said. “It is isolating. It is defeating. It is control and it is torture. We are often placed in solitary confinement for protection or safety measures, minor and major rule violations, or simply for struggling with trauma and mental health. And let’s be honest, most incarcerated people are already trauma survivors. So I ask, how is isolating a wounded person somehow equal to safety? Solitary doesn’t lock a body in a cell. It locks a person inside their own mind. Time stops and pain does not.”

In solitary, Bauer said, she paced the floor just to remind herself that she still existed.

“Women survive through connection, through relationships, and so when you take away human contact, you take away the very thing that keeps us alive,” she said. “No one is built to handle 23 hours a day in a cell. That’s not discipline, that’s psychological torture.”

She added  that in solitary there is no interaction with outside family members, weakening relationships with children.

Observing  people who spent time in solitary,  she said, she saw that they changed for the worse.

“People with dreams come out of solitary unable to make eye contact, unable to trust and unable to believe in themselves or the world around them,” she said. “Solitary doesn’t confine a body. It suffocates the heart. It doesn’t correct behavior. It destroys identity. Solitary confinement causes psychological and emotional distress, more harm, more trauma. Solitary confinement is not a tool. It is a wound, and it is a wound the system continues to inflict on people and then blame them for bleeding.”

Ventae Parrow agreed with Bauer that solitary confinement  had no redeeming  impact on him in prison other than causing him to reflect on what he wanted for his life. He questioned who had the authority to determine whether one should be in solitary, and noted that many who experienced it came out angrier.

“And now you got angry humans coming out back to the community with the vengeance in their heart and their mind versus rehabilitation,” he said.

Tom Denk, an advocate with several WISDOM affiliates and a member of the Mental Health Action Partnership, moderated the panel. Denk, who had also spent time in solitary confinement, noted there is a high rate of mental illness among incarcerated residents, 45%, and the experience of being isolated exacerbates their conditions.

“The use of solitary confinement or restrictive housing is a correctional practice with significant ethical implications,” said Denk. “Prolonged isolation has been associated with severe psychological distress, including anxiety, depression and increased risk of self-harm. It also worsens existing mental health conditions and contributes to higher rates of recidivism.”

But Denk said solitary is often chosen as a method to address psychosis instead of treatment.

Talib Akbar, vice president of the non-profit advocacy group WISDOM, the organizer of the event, said any rule violation in prison could result in being sent to solitary. He said even being a couple of feet outside a cell door could result in being sent to solitary.

The Wisconsin Examiner recently heard from a former resident of Oshkosh Correctional Institution who said he was put in segregation after calling the nearby fire department to report concerns over the prison’s fire safety protocols. He claims that when the fire department called the prison’s facility manager, the manager became upset that the resident didn’t follow the chain of command, and the resident was placed in segregation.  

The panel also addressed the types of medical treatments residents receive in solitary.

Megan Hoffman Kolb whose father, Dean Hoffmann, died in solitary confinement at Waupun Correctional Institution in 2023,  said her father, who suffered from mental illness for 30 years, didn’t consistently get the right medication for the first 80 days in Waupun and never received a psych intake exam, which he was supposed to have received.

She said when her father recorded a credible threat from his cellmate, the prison’s response was to place him in solitary.

“In solitary, he was locked alone in a concrete cell, 24 hours a day, no books, no paper, no phone calls home, no medication,” she said. “The lights were left on constantly. Silence was deafening, broken only by the sounds of people crying out down the hallway. He told staff he was suicidal, hearing voices and couldn’t sleep. A correctional officer responded, ‘What do you want me to do about it?’”

She added, “Solitary confinement is not just isolation. It’s sensory deprivation. It’s a slow unraveling of a person’s mind in a small space. Days blur together, hope disappears for someone already struggling with mental illness, unbearable, and it’s not just emotional, it’s biological. Prolonged solitary confinement literally changes the brain.”

After nine days in solitary, Kolb said, her father took his own life by hanging himself from the cell door. She had viewed the video of his body being removed.

She said the cost of solitary is the trauma the family has experienced, along with the lawsuits, investigation and broken communities, and at the end of the day, taxpayers are being asked to pay for all of it.

“We are pouring millions into a system that tortures instead of treats,” she said, “and families like mine are left paying the ultimate price.”

Regarding the cost of operating solitary, Akbar noted that prisons have to assign more correctional officers (COs) for supervision there because they are considered more dangerous areas, which also raises the cost.

Rep. Clancy said he is against solitary and the ultimate goal should be to ban it outright, but a more attainable goal is proposed legislation that would restrict solitary to 10 days and require 15 hours a week of programming while in solitary to ensure there are visits by people.

“When you talk to people at the DOC and they say, ‘Well, we looked at your legislation, it is onerous. There’s no way we’re going to be able to do that.’ We’re like,‘Great, then don’t put people in solitary.’”

He added, “Please understand that the goal here is to end solitary, but it’s also to bring to people’s minds the real harm from it.”

Rep. Madison said he grew up with a friend who went to prison and was put in solitary, and when his friend got out he still struggled with isolation. One time, the friend wasn’t able to contact Madison and then attempted suicide but didn’t die.

“I was reminded that it is our correctional system that creates the conditions where folks, even when they are released into the community, feel locked up,” he said.

“We simply incarcerate too many people,” said Roys.  She added the goal should be to ensure public safety, not incarcerate people who don’t pose a threat. 

“If we actually want public safety, then we need to change the way we are thinking about that time when people are incarcerated, and it really should be that time that they are building their skills so that they are going to see that they can thrive, and that is why we need to be fostering relationships,” she said.

She also said there needs to be reform of the Truth-in-Sentencing law that is leading to longer prison stays without parole, resulting in more people in prison, and also reforming community supervision to change  a “gotcha” attitude — finding technical violations of those on extended supervision that would send them back to prison, instead of  focusing on helping people succeed in the community.

“If our parole officers, probation officers (POs) viewed their role as facilitating success, and they judged themselves not by how many people would get reincarcerated, but by how many people succeed and never have to be reincarcerated, that’s transformational, and you don’t necessarily need statutes to do that. You absolutely do need a strong will and strong leadership from the top director who says what we are doing.”

Hong said more could be done through executive orders and the governor’s clemency power to grant pardons. She also said she would like to invest more to hire social and mental health workers.

“The more helpers that we have in an institution, the fewer enforcers we need in that same institution,” Clancy said. 

“We have to stop saying that our jails and prisons are understaffed,” he added. “They are not understaffed. They are overpopulated.”

Clancy also said the DOC should pay mental health staff as much, or more, as it does  guards, to help hire and retain staff.

Women in solitary

During a panel discussion on women in solitary, Juli Bliefnick said that after she was assaulted inside  a prison while eating lunch, she was placed in solitary for six days, and during that time she had her monthly period, but male guards didn’t allow her to shower or have clean clothes. She had a similar experience in a county jail.

“That’s some of the most dehumanizing experiences of my whole life,” she said.

In another jail, Bliefnick witnessed a friend who was eight months pregnant put in a cell and stripped naked to look for drugs as the friend screamed.

“You can even move from that environment for decades, and you can still dream about it,” she said.  “You can still think about it like til this day, like I can hear jingling keys, and I’ll still get like, you know, like a fear of like a guard coming to, you know, harass me about something or another, and it’s a terrifying thing because I’m not there anymore. You know, your brain tricks you into thinking that you are. You carry it with you no matter how long you’ve been removed from it.”

Jessica Jacobs, who has not been incarcerated for eight years, still said she is traumatized by her time in solitary.

“Various times I’ve been incarcerated, being stuck in a room like that kind of did something different to me that maybe other people might not understand,” said Jacobs, “but so I had post traumatic stress disorder already, and then the amount of treatment that I had to suffer and go through while I was incarcerated has made it worse. And so I find myself today, sometimes where I get overwhelmed or stimulated, I know my nervous system is out of whack, where I feel like I have to close myself up into my room, and that’s kind of weird, you know, and I feel like I have to lock myself up, and I just don’t even try to figure out what it is. I know that it’s connected to that.”

Jacobs said she remembers being locked up with a 17-year-old girl who had been sex-trafficked by her father, and the girl was missing her babies and was distraught and wanted mental health services, but Jacobs cautioned against it, knowing that seeking those services often meant being sent to solitary or being restricted to a chair.

“And the next thing I know, they hauled her off and stuffed her in solitary confinement by herself,” said Jacobs. “And then came the big banging and the cries began.”

Yolanda Perkins said her mother was in prison for 17 years and spent time in solitary, and that time changed her mother permanently.

“My mother hasn’t been incarcerated in about 20 years, but she won’t go into a room by herself,” said Perkins, adding, “It affects how she grandparents her grandchildren. It affects her communication with them. It affects her communication with society. And so she still struggles.”

Bliefnick spoke about her work with the Ostara Initiative, working with doulas to end the practice of putting pregnant and postpartum women in solitary for protective custody.

“Punishing women who are in that condition is actually a common practice,” she said, “and I mean, can you think of anything worse than putting a woman who just had a baby and had it ripped away from [her getting] 24 hours in solitary confinement like that? That’s like a horrible practice to begin with. It’s like they treat them like cattle, and then to put them in solitary confinement for their protection is like the cruelest thing that you could possibly imagine.”

This story has been updated to fix the photo captions identifying Jen Ann Bauer and Megan Hoffman Kolb

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President Donald Trump speaks as Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Kash Patel, left, and U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi look on during a press conference in the Oval Office of the White House on Oct. 15, 2025 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

President Donald Trump and FBI Director Kash Patel claimed victory Wednesday in what they said was a months-long surge of law enforcement in major cities and pledged to continue sending federal authorities to address violent crime in U.S. cities.

The FBI arrested more than 8,700 suspects during an initiative Trump dubbed “Operation Summer Heat” from June to September. 

The exact parameters of the operation, which had not been previously made public, were unclear as Trump and Patel said during an Oval Office appearance that they would continue to prioritize aggressive enforcement, particularly in major cities led by Democrats.

“Honestly, we haven’t really gotten going yet,” Trump said. “If we didn’t have to fight all these radical left governors, we could’ve had Chicago taken care of, as an example.”

Since June, Trump has pursued a controversial and legally questionable effort to send National Guard troops to U.S. cities — Los Angeles; Washington, D.C.; Memphis and Portland, Oregon — to deal with protestors and general street crime while consistently hinting that more deployments would be coming. 

He said Wednesday that residents of Chicago largely approved of aggressive policing tactics and were “walking around with MAGA hats.” Trump won just 28% of the vote in Chicago’s Cook County in the 2024 election, compared to 70% for Democrat Kamala Harris.

“They’re not interested in National Guard, Army, Navy — bring them in, bring in the Marines,” he said. “They just want the crime to stop.” 

The crime push took Trump by surprise, he said, noting it was not a primary part of his campaign.

“I did get elected for crime, but I didn’t get elected for what we’re doing,” he said. “This is many, many steps above.”

He also identified White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller as an architect and chief communicator of the administration’s law enforcement policies, though he made a passing implication that Miller’s far-right views were too extreme for much of the country.

“I love watching him on television,” he said. “I’d love to have him come up and explain his true feelings. Maybe not his truest feelings — that might be going a little bit too far. But Stephen, thank you for doing an incredible job. The people of this country love you.”

Political crime and Caribbean boats

Trump again broached the possibility of defying two typical norms of presidential power: calling for prosecutions to retaliate against officials who’d investigated him and defending the extrajudicial strikes on alleged drug runners in the Caribbean Sea that he said could expand to land.

Standing between Patel and Attorney General Pam Bondi, Trump said U.S. Sen. Adam Schiff, who, as a U.S. House Democrat before joining the Senate, led congressional investigations into Trump, and former prosecutor Jack Smith, who led criminal prosecutions, should be investigated.

“Deranged Jack Smith is, in my opinion, a criminal,” Trump said. 

“I hope they’re looking at Shifty Schiff,” he added, referring to the California Democrat. “I hope they’re looking at political crime, because there’s never been as much political crime against a political opponent as what I had to go through.”

Trump said the military’s attacks on vessels suspected to be bringing drugs to the United States had effectively halted drug importation from Venezuela. The operation could expand to land targets, he said.

“We are certainly looking at land now, because we’ve got the sea very well under control,” he said.

Smith and Wesson handguns are displayed during the 2015 NRA Annual Meeting and Exhibits in Nashville, Tenn. A new report found Wisconsin gun deaths have increased since 2002. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

Jenevia Blanks’ young cousin was killed by gun violence, Blanks wrote in personal testimony included in a report released Tuesday that analyzes gun deaths in Wisconsin. 

“I want to keep sending a message to legislators that this violence is an epidemic, and something has to be done,” said Blanks, who volunteers with the advocacy group Moms Demand Action. “It’s not acceptable that we keep having so many lives cut short by gun violence.”

Firearms claimed the lives of 762 Wisconsinites in 2023, according to a report from the Wisconsin Anti-Violence Effort (WAVE) Educational Fund and the Violence Policy Center. This included suicides, homicides and other firearm deaths. 

The total number marks a decline from the 830 deaths reported for 2022 and the 793 deaths reported for 2021. The report also says that rates of overall suicide and firearm suicide in Wisconsin are similar to national rates, while homicide and firearm homicide rates are lower in Wisconsin than in the nation. 

However, overall rates of firearm suicides and firearm homicides have increased in Wisconsin since 2002. Since 2020, firearm deaths have reportedly outpaced motor vehicle deaths in Wisconsin. 

“One death from gun violence is too many,” Nick Matuszewski, associate executive director of the WAVE Educational Fund, said in a statement. “But 762 deaths is a disgrace and an urgent call to take the kind of actions that have been proven to save lives.” 

The 762 deaths include 502 firearm suicides and 236 firearm homicides. The report includes findings related to sex, age, race and ethnicity and rural and urban areas. 

WAVE reports that in 2023, suicides took up a larger percentage of firearms deaths in rural Wisconsin (88.5%) than in urban Wisconsin (58.2%). 

According to the report, guns were used in 54.6% of suicides and 83.1% of homicides in Wisconsin.

Black residents of Wisconsin were 40 times more likely to die by firearm homicide than white residents. The report states that an annual study by the Violence Policy Center found that Wisconsin had the fourth highest rate of Black homicide victimization in the nation in 2023. 

In 2023, 8,441 firearms were recovered in Wisconsin and traced, according to WAVE, most of which were handguns. The report found that 84.9% of firearms recovered in Wisconsin originated in the state.

The study was released the day before the Emergency Gun Violence Summit, which will take place Wednesday in Milwaukee. 

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A municipal judge in Milwaukee County recently resigned from her position after she was charged for allegedly lying about obtaining signatures she needed to run for reelection. 

The post Municipal judge in Milwaukee County resigns after allegedly lying about residency, signatures appeared first on WPR.

Wisconsin Department of Correction Secretary Jared Hoy was one of the keynote speakers at the EXPO gala.

Jared Hoy, Secretary of the Wisconsin Department of Corrections, offered something the crowd gathered to celebrate Ex-Incarcerated People Organizing (EXPO)  could relate to – a confession, followed by a commitment to do better.

“I don’t think we’ve done a very good job of engaging with people who are receiving our services, friends and family,” Hoy said in a speech at the EXPO gala Oct. 11 at the Monona Terrace Community and Convention Center in Madison, explaining the reason for conducting Friends and Family Forums between DOC management and the public.

Hoy, one of two keynote speakers during the “EXPOnential” gala, expressed the aim of overcoming challenges confronted by people caught up in the carceral system, including several honorees at the event who had served time in prison, some still on community supervision, including a woman working on becoming a certified peer counselor, a former Iraq war vet and practicing lawyer from Eau Claire, and a newly appointed official for Milwaukee.

EXPO is a non-profit advocacy group in Wisconsin that works to end mass incarceration, dismantle structural discrimination and restore formerly incarcerated people to community life. It’s largely staffed by the formerly incarcerated, including its executive director, Jerome Dillard, who explained the theme of the gala.

The term exponential, he said, is  “not just a gala name, but it’s a map of mercy and it’s an algorithm of potential. An exponent takes a small number and it raises it and turns it into two, into many and sparks into a skyline. And that’s what Wisconsin EXPO is. It’s organizing with formerly incarcerated neighbors to restore rights.”

Marianne Oleson, operations director for EXPO, noted the Beth Israel Center, a conservative synagogue in Madison, was receiving the Ally Organization of the Year recognition for its “shared love” with EXPO’s goals.

“Beth Israel has opened their doors so that we can gather, learn and share our truth with the community, but their generosity extends far beyond the walls of their synagogue,” said Oleson. “They have opened their homes and they have opened their hearts to us. They share their wisdom, compassion, creativity. in so many ways that remind us what true allyship looks like. They give our state residents rides, share the incredible gifts of art, and they bring us homemade lasagna.”

Deandrea “Dee” Hardman received the Woman of the Year recognition. Hardman said before going to prison she had made many bad decisions, living on the streets, surrounded by people who took advantage of her, and burning bridges with people in her life, so that when she left the chaos of her life for prison, she actually felt free.

“Going to prison disrupted my tormented cycle,” she said. “It was the first time I felt like I had an option to choose a different life. I had every opportunity that came my way to grow and change.”

In prison she became a certified welder and participated in work release, and even though she was surrounded by others who didn’t want to change their behavior from the street, she chose differently.

She said being able to reenter society in the EXPO Safe House helped her succeed outside of prison.

“I came home and worked extremely hard, but it was not solely my hard work that got me here — It was my sisters who supported me in the home and everyone who works within the organization,” she said. “For the first time in my life, I was leaving an institution not alone, but with an entire team of people behind me who wanted to help me and have absolutely nothing but the best for me.”

Hardman noted that she had just received her certification to become a peer support specialist and her aim was to share her experience with others to overcome the trauma of addiction and imprisonment.

Man of the Year David Carlson said Expo was one of the first organizations that helped him gain a “foothold” and “get traction in rebuilding my life after re-entry.”

His wife, Alicia Carlson, said her husband was identified by  the number “558672” when he was serving time in prison, but recently he had obtained another number, “1138342,” his state bar license number to practice law in Wisconsin.

“He stepped out of a system that had silenced him and set out on a mission to make people listen, and just as important to make sure that those around him, especially those who’ve been overlooked, blocked out, written off, were seen and heard too,” she said.

Of the two numbers identifying her husband, she said, one reminded him of what it was like to be silenced and the other “gives him a platform to make sure others never are.”

Carlson described the initiatives  her husband launched since he left prison, including a peer support agency with 80 mentors operating in 30 western Wisconsin counties

Carlson, who is now the Justice Forward Wisconsin Coalition coordinator, noted he was sentenced after serving a second tour in Iraq in the military. While in the Stanley Correctional Facility, he had the opportunity to leave early under the earned release program, but he was a self-described  “hothead” who probably was going to serve his whole sentence until a mentor, a fellow resident, saw his potential.

“Instead of seeing me as a dumb, young hothead, he really took me time to mentor me,” Carlson said. “I think mentorship is a key theme in my life and my success in what I have accomplished.”

The Justice Forward Wisconsin Coalition, he said, is a network of “justice-impacted individuals mentoring each other and advocating for each other.”

He said the work needs to be led by those who have experienced incarceration.

“But if you’ve never felt what it feels like to be by yourself in solitary confinement, if you’ve never felt what it feels like to be a teenager in solitary confinement missing your mom, if you’ve never felt what it feels like to be treated and dehumanized after a visit, strip searched, told to bend over and cough — like, these types of things never go away,” he said. “I’m 10 years out, and it never goes away. I’m a lawyer, and it never goes away… I think that it’s time that individuals that have those experiences lead the way, and that’s what this coalition is about.”

Adam Procell, the new director of Community Wellness and Safety for the City of Milwaukee, a position that aims to prevent and reduce violence through community partnerships, received the Ramiah Whiteside Changemaker recognition.

Procell said on the first day of his new position he went back to the site where 35 years earlier, at age 15, when he was a gang member, he had killed 18-year-old Robert Bruce.

“Day One of my job, I went and started at the scene of my crime because I knew I was going to have to ask others to lean into uncomfortable situations,” said Procell, “So I can’t ask the community to lean into uncomfortability unless I take my two feet to be the most uncomfortable place on the face of this Earth, which is where Robert lost his life.”

Procell said there was much pressure on him to succeed and he admitted that he needed help and encouragement. He said others should also be honest about their struggles, adding that “transformation is never born in isolation – It rises from connections.” 

“It wasn’t punishment that changed me. It was the love and hope that I got when I came into this community that made a huge difference, and it changed me,” Procell said.

Hoy talks about changing the DOC culture

During his keynote speech, Hoy noted that in one of his early training sessions at the DOC, he participated in an exercise for recruits in which they were asked whether they perceived themselves as different from those they would be supervising or the same, and he perceived himself as the same.

“And that always stuck with me, because fundamentally I don’t see myself at all different than any people that are being sentenced to Wisconsin DOC,”  he said. 

Hoy said he was challenged by Procell to talk to those receiving services from the DOC to see how effective those services were.

Hoy said he told his staff that they would sit in a room with members of the community to listen.

“It’s just to hear how our policies, how our decisions, impact the lives of not only the people that we care for, provide services to, but their friends and family, and it’s probably been one of the best things that I’ve done since I started,” he said.

Hoy thought the forums would be opportunities to educate the public as well as providing feedback to the DOC.

“I think we are benefiting more by just being there and listening and understanding that the folks across the table and in those small groups are human beings just like us,” he said. “After the first forum, I sat at a table, after just about everybody left with a warden, and I won’t out him, but he was in tears and talked about how much his decisions impact not just people in our care, but their families and their systems. That is culture change.”

Hoy said recommendations are being generated to change the operation of the DOC, but what is more fundamentally important to him is the department’s culture.

“If we don’t make sure to address the culture and how we treat people, making sure that everything we do is treating people with dignity and respect, it’s not going to matter if we bring the overhead time from 35 days on average down to 20 or whatever it might be,” he said.

He noted that those working in maximum security prisons and restrictive housing settings often experience aggression by residents, including bodily fluids thrown at correctional officers.

“I get a lot of pushback when I say, not letting anybody off the hook for it, but what are the conditions that we are creating that make it OK for a human being to do that to another human being?” He said. “That’s the culture that we have to address, and it’s not everywhere. I’m not up here to completely bash DOC. I mean, I’ll tell it like it is, but there are pockets [needing change].”

Hoy also asked for understanding on the difficulty of making changes in an organization with 10,000 staff, 70,000 in community supervision and over 23,000 incarcerated.

“There’s going to be challenges; there’s going to be gaps,” he said of the DOC. But he asked for understanding for the thousands of people who  work for  DOC “who  “are trying to help change lives.”

National effort

The last keynote speaker of the evening was David Ayala, executive director of the national organization of The Formerly Incarcerated Convicted People and Families Movement, a network of over 60 organizations.

Ayala talked about the work of EXPO as part of a national movement that centers leadership by the people directly affected by the carceral system, narrative story-telling,  fighting for systemic change and creating infrastructure for reentry.

He stressed the importance of telling success stories like Carlson’s journey to obtaining his law degree.

“We need to lift up stories like that,” he said, “… there are many Davids across this country.”

Ayala encouraged EXPO to work across state lines with similar organizations.

“You’re not alone,” he told the group.  “You are part of a rich, resilient national web — a movement that believes freedom is not just a word, but a living horizon where every person returning home is met with care, dignity, and possibilities.”

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On Wednesday, a family in Wisconsin filed a lawsuit against the video game giant Roblox, alleging that it failed to protect their child from abuse. A researcher focusing on adolescent internet use gives advice for parents on how to navigate platforms like these.

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Rallygoers hold a sign that reads “Free Kilmar” during a rally Friday, Oct. 10, 2025, outside the U.S. District Court in Greenbelt, Maryland. (Photo by William J. Ford/Maryland Matters)

GREENBELT, Md. — A federal judge in Maryland seemed inclined to order the release of  Kilmar Abrego Garcia from immigration detention after oral arguments in court Friday, a potentially major development in the high-profile case.

After a more than six-hour hearing, District Judge Paula Xinis said a witness provided by the Justice Department showed little evidence that the Trump administration made an effort to remove Abrego Garcia to the southern African nation of Eswatini, and knew nothing about Abrego Garcia agreeing to be removed to Costa Rica. 

The witness tapped by the Department of Justice was John Schultz, a deputy assistant director who oversees Immigration and Customs Enforcement removal operations.

After hearing from him, Xinis said keeping Abrego Garcia detained indefinitely would likely be unconstitutional. She said she would issue an order soon.

Abrego Garcia, the Salvadoran immigrant whose wrongful deportation from Maryland put a spotlight on the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration crackdown, is currently detained in Pennsylvania. 

His attorneys have argued the Trump administration is using detention to punish Abrego Garcia because officials are not trying to remove him, even after Abrego Garcia agreed to be deported to Costa Rica.

‘Three strikes, you’re out’

Xinis expressed her frustration with Department of Justice attorneys for not providing a witness who would give clear answers on how immigration officials were handling the removal of Abrego Garcia. 

“We’re getting to the three strikes, you’re out,” Xinis said. 

Andrew J. Rossman, an attorney for Abrego Garcia, argued that if Immigration and Customs Enforcement is making no plans to immediately remove him, he should be released from detention. 

He also argued that since March, when the Trump administration erroneously deported Abrego Garcia to a mega-prison in El Salvador, to the present, Abrego Garcia has been “in continuous containment” way past the six-month limit set by the Supreme Court regarding the detention of immigrants.

“The real aim of the government… is punitive, which is just to keep him incarcerated,” Rossman said. “It’s an overtly political purpose.”

Rossman told Xinis that he has not received an answer from the federal government as to why they will not remove Abrego Garcia to Costa Rica, after he agreed to that proposal in August.

Xinis asked DOJ attorney Drew Ensign why Abrego Garcia hasn’t been removed to Costa Rica.

Ensign said that it was not clear to the government until Friday that Abrego Garcia had agreed to be removed to Costa Rica, because Abrego Garcia had previously expressed fear of being sent there. 

Abrego Garcia changed his position after Costa Rica assured him he would be given refugee status.

“That is a new development that I will report back to people,” Ensign said.

Supreme Court ruling

A 2001 Supreme Court ruling does not allow for immigrants to be detained longer than six months if the federal government is making no efforts to remove them. 

After 90 days without efforts to deport an immigrant, a challenge can be made because detaining that person any longer than a maximum of 180 days, or six months, would likely be unconstitutional, the high court found in Zadvydas v. Davis. 

Earlier this week, Xinis seemed likely to order Abrego Garcia’s release from Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention, where he has remained since late August. 

Xinis, who also ordered the Trump administration to return Abrego Garica to the United States after she found his removal to El Salvador unlawful, is overseeing his habeas corpus petition, which challenges his detention.

Protesters rally outside the courthouse

Ahead of the hearing, dozens of supporters from the immigrant advocacy group CASA gathered in front of the District Court for the District of Maryland, chanting, “Somos todos Kilmar,” or, “We are all Kilmar.” 

Rallygoers also chanted “What do we want? Justice!” “When do we want it? Now!” 

Some also held signs urging the Trump administration to free Abrego Garcia.

Two Maryland state legislators, Dels. Nicole Williams and Bernice Mireku-North, both Democrats, joined the rally.

Williams sponsored legislation during this year’s General Assembly session to prohibit local police from entering into certain agreements with ICE. On the last day of the legislative session in April, lawmakers passed a watered-down version of a bill that does not include the ban, the biggest loss for Maryland immigration advocates this year.

“We are going to be working on legislation with regards to masking by law enforcement officers,” Williams said. “We need to start treating everyone, I don’t care where you’re from, in a humane and decent way. And that’s what we’re going to be fighting for every single day until Kilmar is free and Kilmar comes home. So stop using Kilmar for your own political gain. Bring Kilmar home.”

White House involvement

Schultz, the DOJ witness, revealed that the White House had direct involvement in picking Uganda as a potential third country of removal for ICE’s deportation of Abrego Garcia. 

The move was unusual because the State Department typically coordinates third-country removals for the Department of Homeland Security.

Schultz said the Homeland Security Council, which operates within the White House, notified ICE of Uganda as a third country of removal. The Homeland Security Council works with the National Security Council of the White House. 

While Uganda is no longer a third country of removal for Abrego Garcia, ICE is trying to now remove him to Eswatini. 

Schultz said Eswatini has not agreed to take Abrego Garcia, but discussions, which he said started on Wednesday, are underway. 

“The discussions are continuing,” Schultz said. 

Schultz said he is not aware if ICE has not made any efforts to determine if Abrego Garcia would face persecution or be tortured or confined in Eswatini, or be removed a second time to El Salvador.  

Eswatini has previously agreed to accept third-country removals from the U.S. and the two countries have a memorandum of understanding, he added.

Ghana another potential destination

Schultz said that ICE has also identified the west African country of Ghana as a potential nation for Abrego Garica’s removal. Schultz said once a third country has agreed to accept Abrego Garica, he could be removed by ICE within 72 hours.

However, Ghana’s Foreign Minister, Sam Okudzeto Ablakwa, wrote on social media that the country will not accept Abrego Garcia. 

“This has been directly and unambiguously conveyed to US authorities,” he wrote. “In my interactions with US officials, I made clear that our understanding to accept a limited number of non-criminal West Africans, purely on the grounds of African solidarity and humanitarian principles would not be expanded.”

Schultz said that ICE “prematurely” sent a notice of removal to Abrego Garcia with Ghana as the designation.

The Costa Rica alternative

One of Abrego Garcia’s attorneys, Sascha Rand, grilled Schultz about why DHS would not remove him to Costa Rica, despite Abrego Garcia agreeing to go.

Schultz said he was unaware of the letter from Costa Rica’s government saying it would accept Abrego Garcia.

Another attorney for Abrego Garcia, Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, said that the Trump administration offered to remove Abrego Garcia to Costa Rica in August if he were to plead guilty to criminal charges in a federal case in Tennessee. 

Abrego Garcia’s attorneys in his criminal case in Nashville said in court filings that the Trump administration is trying to get him to plead guilty to human smuggling charges by promising to remove him to Costa Rica if he does so, and threatening to deport him to Uganda if he refuses. 

Rand asked Schultz if anyone from DHS was in contact with Costa Rica.

Schultz said he was unaware if there were conversations between the federal government and Costa Rica about removing him there. 

Rossman said based on Schultz’s testimony, it was clear the Trump administration was “holding hostage passage to Costa Rica.”

“They aren’t presently intending to remove him,” he said. “They have spun the globe and picked various (African) countries… to fail on purpose.”

William J. Ford of Maryland Matters contributed to this report.

By a party-line vote Thursday, Milwaukee prosecutor Rebecca Taibleson was approved by the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee to be the next judge for the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals — a high-profile federal position reserved for a Wisconsin jurist.

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Jerome Dillard, executive director of Ex-Incarcerated People Organizing (EXPO) (left) holds book discussion with author and activist Bianca Tylek (right). (Photo by Isiah Holmes/Wisconsin Examiner)

“We’re talking about a major, major industry in our society today,” activist and writer Bianca Tylek told a group of about 20 people who packed a room at Madison’s Lake City Books Monday night. At the Q&A and book signing event, hosted by Ex-Incarcerated People Organizing (EXPO), Tylek — described as a leading expert in the prison industry — discussed her new book The Prison Industry: How It Works and Who Profits, offering her insights into what she called a $80-90 billion industry in America. 

“This is just a massive industry of folks who are using the correctional system to essentially extract either wealth or resources either from public coffers, or from low-income … communities that are directly impacted by incarceration,” said Tylek, who also founded and leads the non-profit organization Worth Rises, which works to confront and reform the prison industry. Tylek’s book delves into multiple aspects of the prison industry from food distribution to telecommunications and examines privatization, who profits and the lives of the people who are directly affected. 

The discussion was moderated by Jerome Dillard, EXPO’s executive director, who sat beside Tylek asking  questions. Dillard called Tylek “my daughter in the movement,” and spoke of his admiration for her work and her spirit in fighting for change within the prison system. 

Dillard described attending an event in Appleton last week with Tylek where he was invited to receive an award, “not knowing what we were going into,” and realizing it was a Wisconsin Correctional Association conference. 

“I just couldn’t believe all the industries that were there with tables, and tabling the event with new devices and all this,” said Dillard. “I left there really broken and heavy. These conferences opened my eyes to how big this industry is … that individuals are capitalizing on human misery.” Conference tables displayed new kinds of spit masks and shock gloves to prospective correctional customers, some of whom made joking comments about using the devices on the job. “It just blew me away, you know, that she’s bragging about punishing and torturing people in their care,” said Dillard, recalling a woman who made such remarks. 

Tylek said that there are over 1,400 manufacturers of correctional and policing equipment nationwide. “Every single state has a correctional conference,” said Tylek. “Every single state has a sheriff’s association,” as well as conferences and associations dedicated to jails, parole and other aspects of the correctional system. Tylek recalled attending the American Correctional Association conference, one of the largest in the nation, where she saw an exhibit hall “with hundreds of corporations” with their own exhibit tables. 

“And not just tables,” Tylek told the crowd. “Probably the wildest thing I saw was one company drive a full bus into the convention center, where staff from correctional institutions could step onto the bus and play with all the equipment and trinkets that they were selling. And they gave out free raffle tickets and all these things, and probably the grossest thing that I experienced was all the tickets to private events. And I made my way up to a private event for Securus.” Tylek said that the company is one of the nation’s two largest prison telecommunication companies, and was one of the largest sponsors of the conference that year. “And they had a happy hour that involved a full open bar,” said Tylek, “a full swing dance performance, everyone just having the most joyous time of all. All while on the walls there were the kiosks, the tablets, the phone devices that you could go and speak to a Securus representative while you have your cocktail. And all of this built on about 2 million people who are sitting in a cage somewhere who will never see this, who don’t get to enjoy these luxuries in any of this. It’s heartbreaking, and it’s repulsive, I think, more than anything.”

Later, Tylek elaborated more on how companies use things like gifts and luxury vacations to grow their relationships with correctional and law enforcement leaders. “At conferences, you would get these private event tickets,” she said. At one such event, she recalled, attendees were given hand-rolled cigars. “That’s just the legal stuff that looks gross,” said Tylek. There are also “questionably legal” practices, such as offering “training cruises” in the Caribbean for prison and sheriff staff in brochures distributed during contract bidding processes. 

On the dark end of the spectrum is bribery, such as the case of a Mississippi prison commissioner who was involved in a bribery and kickback scheme with private prison companies. Tylek highlighted how in Mississippi, a prison commissioner went on to work for a private prison company as a lobbyist. Similar revolving doors exist between the prison industry, especially private prisons, Homeland Security and immigration agencies, said Tylek.

Tylek described the rise of  the prison industry as a relatively new phenomenon in America. Prior to the abolition of slavery, she said, the prison population was predominantly white, and only shifted to being predominantly Black in the decades after abolition — a move  to “re-confine and re-enslave” Black people. Prison populations continued to grow into the 1970s and 80s, leading into the War on Drugs. “Really around the 1980s is when you start to see industry recognize a potential opportunity,” said Tylek. 

That’s the  era during which most of the private prison companies featured in her book began to emerge. Private prison industry representatives helped craft some of the nation’s most punitive laws such as three-strikes laws, truth in sentencing and mandatory minimums, which helped grow the prison population. “Those three pieces of model legislation were drafted by the prison industry, and specifically by private prison executives,” said Tylek. 

The consequences have been devastating for individuals and families, and also ripple out into society. “The impact of the prison industry bleeds far beyond prison walls,” Tylek said. Among those ripple effects are the cost borne by families that put money on the books for incarcerated loved ones to have food and hygiene supplies or simply to communicate, incarcerated people who work long hours for 14 cents an hour on average, missed child support payments from incarcerated parents and victims who don’t receive restitution. In addition, many small towns which once saw prisons as economic saviors now see them as burdens. 

“In the end, all of us are impacted,” said Tylek. “When we exploit people who are incarcerated, or we have a system that wants to put more people behind bars and for longer because a few stand to benefit, then socially we are all harmed by that.” 

Yet a space ripe with so many problems also invites solutions. In several states, Tylek has been involved in movements to make phone calls to incarcerated people free and in more than one of those places, that effort succeeded. “Something that everyone can understand is what’s the importance of a phone call home,” Tylek told her bookstore audience. Families of incarcerated people often face significant financial challenges, including debt, income loss and unemployment. 

In 2017, Tylek began to focus on the prison telecommunications industry. “We led the first successful campaign to make communication completely free in a jail system,” said Tylek. That was in New York, and affected the infamous Rikers Island jail. From 2019 to 2023, Tylek’s organization Worth Rises pushed for free jail calls in San Francisco, San Diego, Los Angeles, Massachusetts, free prison calls in Connecticut, California, Colorado, Minnesota. Free prison calls were enshrined in the CARES Act as a result of that work. “We’ve been able to save families $600 million to date,” Tylek said, “and generate over 3 billion additional call minutes between people who are incarcerated and their loved ones.”

Dillard recalled celebrating some of those victories with Tylek, but the fight continues. “We’re in a dozen more states trying to fight for the exact same legislation to make communication free in our prisons and jails,” said Tylek. “The outcomes that we get are life-changing. In Connecticut we saw phone volume increase by over 120% overnight. In New York just recently, first data’s coming back and we are north of 40% increases in calling.” Some of that difference is also due to inconsistent call rates across different states, with incarcerated people being charged 2.8 cents per minute in New York versus people in Connecticut who were paying 32.5 cents per minute. 

“No matter where it happens, the change is substantial,” said Tylek. “These are real people with real lives. We have talked to families whose autistic child stopped speaking when her father went to prison. And when phone calls became free and he could call home again she started speaking again, her child development changed, she started engaging more in school, and now she’s flourishing, all off a simple phone call.”

Those kinds of victories can be replicated elsewhere. A campaign was launched earlier this year to make jail calls free in Racine County, and La Crosse became the first Wisconsin county to provide free jail calls earlier this year. 

“What I love about the examples in Wisconsin is that we had nothing to do with them,” Tylek said, drawing laughter from the audience in Madison. “My biggest goal has been for this movement to take itself.” 

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Men exercise in the maximum security yard of the Lansing Correctional Facility in Lansing, Kan. The prison population in Kansas rose nearly 5% between 2022 and 2023. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images)

The nation’s prison population grew for the second consecutive year in 2023, reversing more than a decade of steady decline.

A new prison population report from the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics, released before the federal shutdown, shows that 1,254,224 people were incarcerated in state and federal prisons on the last day of 2023 — an increase of 24,081 people from the year before, or about 2%. 

It follows a rise in 2022, which marked the first uptick since 2010, when prison populations began a gradual decline after peaking in the mid 2000s.

Even with recent increases, the prison population in 2023 was still about 20% below the 2013 level.

The latest figures show that women remain a small share of the prison population, but their numbers are growing faster than men’s. 

Between 2022 and 2023, the female prison population rose nearly 4%, from 87,800 to 91,100. The male population increased by nearly 2% during the same period. Thirty-eight states saw growth in their male prison populations, while 41 states reported increases among women.

New Mexico, Maine and South Dakota recorded the highest growth rates in their prison populations. 

Seven more populous states — Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, New York, Ohio, Texas and Wisconsin — added more than 1,000 people to their prison rolls during the same period. New Jersey, Alaska and Hawaii had the largest decreases in rates.

The growth comes as prisons are grappling with another demographic shift: a rapidly aging population. In 2023, nearly 1 in 4 prisoners were 50 or older. That trend is expected to continue, some experts say, with projections that by 2030 as much as one-third of the U.S. prison population will be over 50.

Correctional systems, many of which already face staffing shortages and overcrowding, are under growing pressure as prison populations rise. In recent years, some prisoner advocates and state legislators have pushed for measures such as “second look” laws or expanded parole eligibility that would release people deemed low risk for reoffending. Those could include older adults, people with serious medical needs and those convicted of nonviolent offenses.

The idea has gained traction as a way to lower prison operation costs and ease strain on correctional staff, but it remains controversial. Supporters say targeted decarceration can improve safety inside prisons and save taxpayer dollars, while opponents argue it could jeopardize public safety and that such releases may not significantly lower taxpayer costs. 

Stateline reporter Amanda Hernández can be reached at ahernandez@stateline.org.

For the first time since 2017, Wisconsin's troubled youth prisons are fully compliant with 50 court-ordered reforms aimed at improving how staff treat young inmates.

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The case against a Madison priest who's accused of attempting to sexually assault a child is moving forward.

The post Madison priest appears in Waupaca County Court on charges including attempted child enticement appeared first on WPR.

Child abuse, neglect or endangerment laws were used to charge hundreds of pregnant people with crimes in the two years after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, underscoring the rise of fetal personhood laws, according to a new report. (Getty Images)

More than 400 people were charged with pregnancy-related crimes during the two years after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned federal abortion rights, research released Tuesday shows.

Prosecutors across the country often charged people with some form of child neglect, endangerment or abuse based on allegations of substance use during pregnancy, according to an annual report from the nonprofit Pregnancy Justice. 

Nearly three dozen cases were brought against people who miscarried or delivered stillborns, and in nine cases, pregnant people were accused of obtaining, attempting or researching abortion. 

“Prosecutors are wielding criminal laws to surveil and criminalize pregnant people, their behavior and their pregnancy outcomes,” Dana Sussman, Pregnancy Justice’s senior vice president, told States Newsroom.

Although charges against those experiencing pregnancy loss are less common, Sussman said she fears they could lead people to avoid seeking miscarriage care. 

For instance, a woman who miscarried at home was charged with abuse of a corpse in September 2023, Ohio Capital Journal reported. 

Brittany Watts was around 21 weeks pregnant when she went to the hospital but waited for hours and didn’t get help, according to the Capital Journal, and after she miscarried at home, she returned to the hospital, where staff called police. She was never indicted, and she filed a federal lawsuit in January against the city of Warren, police, hospital officials and hospital staff. 

“Rather than being able to grieve her loss, she was taken away in handcuffs. She was interrogated in her hospital bed while she was still tethered to IVs, and so she wants compensation for her own trauma, but most importantly, wants to make sure that this doesn’t happen to anyone else,” Rachel Brady, Watts’ attorney, told States Newsroom in June.

Watts’ lawsuit alleges local law enforcement and the hospital violated the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment and the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA), which requires hospitals that receive Medicare funding to provide stabilizing medical treatment regardless of a person’s ability to pay or insurance status. The defendants denied liability and the plaintiff’s claims, according to court documents filed in September. 

In this year’s report, pregnancy-related cases cropped up in 16 states, and states with strict abortion bans topped the list again: Alabama (192), Oklahoma (112) and South Carolina (62).

“If you are doing anything that exposes your pregnancy, your fetus to some real risk, perceived or assumed risk, in certain parts of the country, that is a felony,” Sussman said. 

Fetal personhood — the notion that fetuses, zygotes and embryos should have the same legal rights as human beings — comes into play when pregnant people struggling with addiction are drug tested during checkups or at labor and delivery units, Sussman said. 

“In several states, it’s become relatively common practice for people to be charged with a felony for child endangerment or neglect for simply testing positive” on toxicology tests, Sussman said. “And that carries years in prison, and of course, immediate family separation from your newborn and even from your other children in your home, in your family.” 

An investigation by The Marshall Project, Mississippi Today and three other news outlets in 2023 found that local law enforcement and prosecutors in Alabama, Mississippi, Oklahoma and South Carolina applied child abuse and neglect laws to fetuses when pursuing charges against pregnant women. 

Lawmakers in a few states have pitched legislation seeking to curb punitive approaches to addiction among expectant and new mothers. 

A bill advancing in the New York Legislature would require informed consent for drug testing and screening pregnant and postpartum patients unless it’s medically necessary. Legislation took effect in Washington state this summer that prevents the criminalization of pregnancy loss, and requires officials at jails, prisons and immigrant detention centers to report miscarriages and stillbirths to the state annually. Massachusetts legislators passed a law in December that prevents medical professionals from automatically referring substance-exposed newborns to the state Department of Children and Families. 

Prosecutors obtained information about pregnancy-related crimes from health care facilities in 264 out of 412 cases, even in incidents that did not allege substance use, according to the Pregnancy Justice report.

“If people are worrying about losing their children because of family separation through the child welfare system or by going to jail, they are not going to get the care that they need,” Sussman said. “Pregnancy is seen as a moment and a window of opportunity for people to get care. People are motivated, uniquely motivated, and we really squander that opportunity when we turn health care into a place of reporting.” 

A man is being held in the Dane County Jail after being accused of threatening to blow up the Wisconsin state Capitol.

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An incarcerated person sits inside a housing block at California’s San Quentin State Prison. People 55 and older make up about 19% of the state’s prison population. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

America’s prison population is growing older at a pace that some experts say is unsustainable. As of 2022, the latest year with available data, people 55 and over made up nearly 1 in 6 prisoners — a fourfold increase since 2000 — and their numbers are projected to keep rising.

A new report from the American Civil Liberties Union and the Prison and Jail Innovation Lab at the University of Texas at Austin warns that this trend is straining correctional systems that were not designed to care for older adults.

If current trends continue, the authors estimate that by 2030 as much as one-third of the U.S. prison population will be over 50.

“It puts it into perspective how bad that this has gotten,” said Alyssa Gordon, the report’s lead author. Gordon is an attorney and legal fellow with the ACLU National Prison Project. “People don’t realize that prisons are woefully equipped to handle this crisis.”

The findings are based on data from public records requests to all 50 state corrections departments, publicly available state prison population datasets and the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics. Some data, however, were not available for every state, limiting the authors’ ability to make extended state-by-state comparisons.

The report’s findings come as states face competing pressures: a nationwide crackdown on crime and public safety, tightening corrections budgets and severe overcrowding and staffing shortages.

The aging prison population is largely a product of the “tough-on-crime” era of the 1980s and 1990s, when lawmakers at both the state and federal level enacted a wave of punitive policies under the banner of public safety, according to the report. These policies, including mandatory minimums, “three strikes” laws and “truth-in-sentencing” statutes, led to significantly longer sentences and fewer opportunities for early release. Experts say many of those policies remain in place today.

The report also highlights the growing price tag of incarcerating an aging population. Corrections spending data shows an upward trend in medical costs across some states, according to the report.

Prisons often lack accommodations for older adults, including accessible showers and beds, dementia care and hospice services, putting them at greater risk of injury or premature death, according to the report.

Emergency protocols also are frequently inadequate, the authors found, leaving older prisoners particularly vulnerable during natural disasters, disease outbreaks and other emergencies.

Some experts say that the costs of incarcerating older adults could create common ground for policymakers, as reducing this population may lower prison spending without significantly affecting public safety.

“If you want to figure out which population to target where it doesn’t have a public safety implication, this is the population to turn to,” Michele Deitch, one of the report’s authors and the director of the Prison and Jail Innovation Lab, told Stateline. “This is an issue that can gather bipartisan support.”

The report’s authors estimate that more than half of incarcerated people over 55 — more than 58,000 individuals — have already served at least 10 years, with nearly 16,000 behind bars for more than half their lives.

Older adults are less likely to reoffend, with recidivism rates reported at 18% in Colorado in 2020, 12% in South Carolina in 2021, and 6% in Florida in 2022. These rates are far below the national three-year rearrest rate of 66% for the general prison population, according to the report.

In recent years, more states have explored measures to address the aging prison population, including legislation commonly called “second look” laws or policies that expand parole eligibility for older or seriously ill inmates.

Most recently, a new Maryland law, which is set to take effect on Oct. 1, will allow certain incarcerated people to apply for geriatric parole. The law applies to those who are at least 65, have served at least 20 years, are not sex offenders, are serving sentences with the possibility of parole, and have had no serious disciplinary infractions in the past three years.

Stateline reporter Amanda Hernández can be reached at ahernandez@stateline.org.

A Milwaukee PD "critical response vehicle", or surveillance van. (Photo by Isiah Holmes/Wisconsin Examiner)

The Milwaukee Police Department (MPD) is pursuing upgrades to technology used to track phones during investigations. Known as cell site simulators, the formerly murky equipment tracks phones by mimicking cell towers. Once connected to a targeted phone, cell site simulators are able to track the signal, allowing police to locate people. According to city purchasing division records, MPD aims to upgrade and acquire new components and extend a contract for the phone tracking gear by three years. 

The city’s contract with Tactical Support Equipment will be extended until 2028 and increase by $165,000 to $1.45 million. “MPD operating funds will be used,” according to records obtained by the Examiner explaining the purpose for amending the contract. The amendments will cover funds and coverage for two cell site simulators purchased in 2022, the records state. 

A separate section of the purchasing division records explains “this equipment is used on a regular basis to locate suspects and in exigent situations such as critical missing incidents.” It also states, “MPD used this equipment to help support other law enforcement agencies in Wisconsin, law enforcement in other states such as Texas, Ohio, and Michigan, and federal agencies such as FBI and DEA. At this time, MPD is seeking to upgrade the existing equipment, add additional equipment, and add warranty, support and maintenance for the new and upgraded equipment beyond what the department currently has in place. Tactical Support Equipment, Inc. is the only vendor that can support the equipment as the equipment and software is proprietary.”

MPD has used cell site simulators since at least 2010, according to logs the department uses to catalog its use of the gear. For years, the technology was used by MPD’s Fusion Center, an intelligence unit originally created for Homeland Security operations. A group of officers known as the Confidential Source Team – or CS Team – operates the cell site simulators. Logs of the technology’s use show that it’s mostly used to investigate crimes including homicides and shootings and for investigations related to overdoses or firearms. The logs also show the technology is used to locate material witnesses, kidnapping victims, but also for vague reasons like “drugs”, “long term”, or are redacted entirely.

By 2022, when Wisconsin Examiner first interviewed a member of the CS Team, both the team and its gear had been moved from the Fusion Center to MPD’s Special Investigations Division (SID), which focuses on fugitives, felonies and violent crimes. The team’s name invokes the technology’s secretive history. 

The Milwaukee department once signed non-disclosure agreements in order to acquire the technology leading to controversies in 2016, when MPD was accused of hiding use of Stingray-type devices from judges during court proceedings. When asked during a trial about how a person was located, officers used “oddly vague language,” the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Wisconsin said, even stating that they “obtained information from an unknown source.” Things have changed over time, however. Today, the Milwaukee Police Foundation, which funnels private donations to MPD, publicly lists cell site simulators as among the technologies it helps MPD to purchase.

Like many other law enforcement agencies nationwide, for years MPD utilized phone tracking equipment produced by the Harris Corporation, a multi-billion dollar defense contractor. Harris’ devices were so common that one of its brand names, Stingray, became a common shorthand for all cell site simulators, which are also sometimes called “IMSI catchers.”   

In 2019, MPD purchased a new model from Tactical Support Equipment, a North Carolina-based veteran-owned company which sells everything from K9 camera systems to cables and night-vision cameras. The company does not appear to advertise its cell phone tracking systems on its website. 

Tactical Support Equipment, which did not respond to requests for comment for this story, sold MPD a single cell site simulator in 2019 for $498,900, according to purchasing division records from the time. Later that same year, MPD purchased a C-Hostile Emitter Angle Tracker (C-HEATR), which is a remote handheld mapping device that works together with the cell site simulator. 

Three years later in 2022, MPD upgraded the cell tracking gear by adding a four-channel “5G enabler solution” for $328,700, and a 12-channel portable base station with full 5G coverage (as well as insurance, training, and supporting equipment) for $951,750. 

Responding to questions from Wisconsin Examiner, MPD said that the most recent upgrades will be to “support devices operating in 5G.” The department added that “MPD is the only agency in the area that has a [cell site simulator]. When an agency needs assistance with an investigation and their request falls in line with our operating best practices, we try to provide that agency with assistance.” 

Although cell site simulators are less of an enigma than they used to be, many questions still remain. While MPD states that its technology can only track location, cell site simulators as a family of devices are known to be capable of intercepting calls and text messages, and even more exotic abilities like sending fake short messages to a target phone. In Milwaukee, local activists have long reported strange phone malfunctions and service disruptions which they suspect may be caused by law enforcement surveillance. 

MPD has repeatedly denied responsibility for the claims, and has said in the past that the department’s cell site simulators do not cause malfunctions to target phones. When the Wisconsin Examiner reached out for this story, however, MPD said for the first time that “the equipment already will disrupt service to the target phone when the target phone is located. That disruption is limited to the time it takes for the operator to narrow down the location of the device.” 

The department has also repeatedly stated that its cell site simulators cannot intercept calls or text messages. A different technology known as PenLink is used by MPD for Title III investigations, which involve intercepting content of communications. In responses to Wisconsin Examiner, MPD cited Department of Justice policies and U.S. law which state that “cell site simulator technology must be configured as pen registers, and may not be used to collect contents of any communication.” Wisconsin Examiner reached out to the Wisconsin Department of Justice for more information and has not received a response. 

From 2021 to 2023, Republicans introduced bills that would have changed  how pen registers are defined in Wisconsin. Supporters of the bills, which did not pass, said that they would allow law enforcement to pursue pen registers for social media. Telecommunications experts, however, warned that the bills could open a “back door” for police to use cell site simulator devices in ways not well understood by judges or the public. 

There have been more calls for more oversight of police surveillance in Milwaukee recently, with local activists pushing for  Community Control Over Police Surveillance (CCOPS) ordinances. Over two dozen U.S. cities have already passed such ordinances, which provide more transparency about the purchase and use of surveillance technologies by police departments. MPD stresses that it uses cell site simulators in accordance with DOJ policy “and only after a court order is granted in cases that are not exigent,” the department said in a statement. “There is a process in place in which utilization of the equipment is only done with supervisory approval and oversight.”

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The Palmyra public safety building. (Photo via Palmyra Fire Rescue Facebook page)

Under a proposed partnership with federal Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE), the Palmyra Police Department would focus on criminals — not on people simply because they might be immigrants without legal status, the department’s interim police chief told the Wisconsin Examiner in an interview last week. 

Interim Police Chief Paul Blount also said that partnering with ICE would allow department officers to get access to databases and resources to better fight serious crimes, such as drug trafficking and human trafficking.

Along with the proposed partnership deal, the Palmyra department has the potential to receive payments for its involvement. According to CBS 58 News, Blount said last week that the agreement might “be the difference in this next year of having officers on the street during the daytime and nighttime.”

Blount spoke with the Wisconsin Examiner for about 40 minutes Thursday about the village’s proposed ICE partnership. The arrangement, under the ICE task force model, would grant officers limited authority to enforce immigration law while performing routine police duties. The department would also receive reimbursements from ICE. 

Task force agreements with ICE were discontinued in 2012, but the government has revived the program in President Donald Trump’s second term, Stateline reported.

The 287(g) program allows participating local law enforcement to enforce certain aspects of U.S. immigration law in partnerships with ICE. While 13 Wisconsin counties have a sheriff’s department partnering with ICE, Palmyra would be the only 287(g) partnership in Wisconsin between a police department and ICE. 

The Palmyra partnership would also be the only 287(g) partnership in Wisconsin using the task force model. Other models focus on people who are already in custody. 

The proposal still awaits approval by the Palmyra village board. 

The American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin issued a press release last week criticizing the potential partnership, saying the department is “partnering hand in glove with ICE to carry out this regime’s plan to deport our immigrant neighbors and loved ones.” 

Chief: Little change for police operations

In his interview with the Wisconsin Examiner, Blount said that under the arrangement with ICE, the village police department would not be operating much differently than it does now. 

In addition to cooperating with the federal government, Blount said,  “Obviously the financial incentive that was newly added that goes along with it was another reason why we looked at this program, and said, ‘We’re already doing a majority of what this involves. So why would we not collaborate with them, and then we could have the financial incentive that goes along with it.’” 

The ICE website says officers may also exercise limited immigration authority as active participants on ICE-led task forces. 

In its statement, the ACLU said that the task force model “gives officers the green light to stop people they think might be immigrants on the street, question them about their citizenship status, and even take them into custody.”

Blount said the department will not go door to door to check individuals’ documentation or profile people who they think may lack documentation. Palmyra police will collaborate with ICE when someone is involved in criminal activity, wanted on a warrant or facing criminal charges, he said. 

Blount, who is also the director of public safety for the village, said he is one of three full-time officers in the department, along with five part-time officers. 

Asked whether a Palmyra Police Department officer might ask people about their immigration status if they are pulled over for traffic violations — rather than something that would lead police to take a driver to jail — Blount said he didn’t think that was likely. 

 “For a simple traffic stop, that is something that we would be allowed to do,” Blount said, “and I would say that I haven’t made a final decision on that yet. If it involves criminal traffic, the answer to that would be yes, if it’s criminal traffic. So there are certain things that rise to the element of criminal traffic law…but basic traffic [offenses] like a speeding ticket, probably not.”

Blount said that distinction would potentially be detailed in a policy if the village moves ahead with the partnership.  

In its statement, the ACLU of Wisconsin raised concerns about racial profiling. A 2011 Department of Justice investigation found widespread racial profiling and other discrimination in an Arizona task force. 

The ACLU also called for “a balanced approach to immigration that includes both humane border management and a pathway to citizenship.”

If Palmyra moves forward with the partnership, Blount said he is leaning “towards establishing policies and procedures to prevent any type of profiling that the agreement has the potential for.” 

ICE now lists Palmyra Police Department as a participating 287(g) agency with the task force model, with a signature date of Monday, Sept. 22. Blount said the department received federal approval on Wednesday. 

The department’s application for the task force model is pending review by the village board, Blount said, and the board’s vote will be posted on a meeting agenda before it takes place. 

Officers who will be involved must take 40 hours of training and education, which has not started yet, Blount said.  

A financial boon

Blount said the program would come with significant financial incentives from the federal government. 

At the time of his interview with the Wisconsin Examiner, Blount was unsure of the exact amounts that Palmyra would receive. He later sent the Examiner a press release from the Department of Homeland Security dated Sept. 17, which includes details about reimbursement opportunities that will begin Oct. 1. 

A 287(g) fact sheet on ICE’s website contains a section titled “Task Force Model Reimbursement Plan Benefits,” which include $7,500 for equipment for each trained task force officer, $100,000 for new vehicles, salary and benefits reimbursed per trained task force officer and overtime funds up to 25% of salary.

Agencies will also be able to receive quarterly performance awards, up to $1,000 per eligible task force officer, based on “the successful location of illegal aliens provided by ICE and overall assistance to further ICE’s mission to defend the homeland,” the ICE press release states.

In an email message, Village Board President Tim Gorsegner said the board hasn’t discussed the proposal yet, has no official position and will set up a future meeting to hear comments from the public.

In his interview, Blount said he believes he and the board are listening to community questions.

“We’ve had a fair amount of support and a fair amount of, lack of a better term, negativity and pushback for the potential pending agreement,” Blount said. “So we’re listening to both sides and listening to that feedback, and I think obviously the board then will make their decision based on that.”

Blount said he didn’t think the village board would weigh in on the specifics of how he participates in the agreement. 

“They usually don’t get involved in my operations per se,” he said.

This report has been updated with a response from the village board about the proposal. 

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