Browsing: Crime and Justice

An employer handbook

Two studies look at Wisconsin’s complex community corrections system and why many on supervision are failing.

Revocation study looks at Wisconsin’s complex community corrections system and why many on supervision are failing.

Former Michigan state Sen. John Proos (R), chair of the legislative budget subcommittees overseeing corrections and the judiciary budgets, describes the bipartisan reform measures Michigan adopted in 2017 and the dramatic improvements that followed. The event in the Wisconsin State Capitol was sponsored by the Wisconsin Criminal Justice Coalition.

The increasing popularity of recreational marijuana is not reason to legalize it. In fact, the more we learn about the impact of recreational use, the more we should take caution.

It is time to end the war on pot, which enriches criminals and puts innocent people in jail, all at a huge cost to Wisconsin taxpayers.

Wisconsin’s law, which requires a judge to decide on expungement at the time of sentencing, is unlike any in the nation

Badger Institute Policy Analyst Julie Grace testifies in favor of 2019 SB 39 before the Wisconsin Senate Committee on Judiciary and Public Safety on March 19, 2019

2019 SB 39 would reform Wisconsin’s expungement laws.

How can Wisconsin improve its criminal justice system? Representatives from the University of Wisconsin, Right on Crime, and the Charles Koch Institute discuss areas for reform.
Featuring Cecelia Klingele, Tom Lyons and Jeremiah Mosteller

Wisconsin legislators and stakeholders held a news conference to unveil the “Expungement Reform: Pathways to Employment” bill. The bill would allow individuals with misdemeanors or Class H and I felonies to also seek expungement after they serve their sentence, remove the age 25 restriction and would apply retroactively to those who served time before the new legislation.

Badger Institute analysis: Current restrictions undermine lawmakers’ intent, create obstacles to employment.

When law enforcement and ex-offenders come together, good things can happen.

This video tells the story of Partners in Hope, a Milwaukee prisoner reentry program where cops, federal agents and prosecutors (among others) offer training, mentorship and friendship to people directly returning from prison or jail.

The Wisconsin Criminal Justice Coalition, led by the Badger Institute, offers policy ideas for combating recidivism, fostering opportunity, saving taxpayer money and maintaining public safety.

A decade ago, the Grafton Fire Department was a private, all-volunteer service that had operated the same way for more than a century.

Suggesting changes to fire department practices isn’t an affront to heroes

Firefighters almost never fight fires nowadays, turning fire departments into emergency medical services agencies. Is there a better way?

Institute welcomes first member of new Visiting Fellows Program.

Priorities should include tax reform, corrections, professional licensure and tolling

Meet Daniel Kelly, the most improbable candidate to land a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
A Colorado boy, Kelly did not grow up in Wisconsin. He didn’t attend either of the state’s two law schools, the legal factories that stamp out most of the top judges in Wisconsin. In the two decades that Kelly worked as a lawyer in the Badger State, it was largely out of the public spotlight on complex commercial litigation.
And when his name surfaced last year as one of three finalists to replace retiring Justice David Prosser, Kelly was excoriated as an extremist by lefties horrified at the high court’s rightward tilt. He was far from the odds-on favorite to earn the governor’s appointment.