MOSES Abbreviated Position Points for Resolution 556
on Dane County Jail and Criminal Justice System
The MOSES Jail Task Force has the following three primary goals:
- Stop all unnecessary incarceration
- End racial disparities
- Treatment instead of jail for people with mental illness, developmental disabilities, or addictions
- Improve jail conditions for those inside
- Ensure that any facility changes promote goals 1 and 2
MOSES’s full position statement of March 7, 2015, elaborates on these goals in an effort to strengthen Resolution 556, currently before the County Board. Below is a condensed version of the position points found in the full position statement.
1. Create Crisis Intervention and Restoration Centers:Create communitybased jail alternatives including one or more crisis intervention or restoration centers, and locate the centers to provide equitable access, especially to people of color. Commit to increasing County funding for mental health services, and also use BadgerCare and other health insurance to expand such services.
2. Expand Alternatives and Diversions: Expand current diversion programs and alternatives to incarceration, including electronic monitoring (home detention), drug courts, and restorative courts, while also increasing racially equitable access and participation. Charge the Length of Stay Work Group with determining how to expand existing and other alternatives and diversions.
3. Achieve Racial Equity: Set measurable and concrete goals for increasing racial equity in access to and participation in all services and programs discussed in Resolution 556, and include achievement of racial equity in the missions of all three work groups. Include specific racial equity goals in all sections of Resolution 556.
4. Address Life and Safety Concerns:Obtain from the Sheriff specific information about the immediate facilities needs that are related to life and safety, as well as racially disaggregated data about the people most at risk due to these issues. Wait on making broader jail space planning decisions until the number of people in the County jail has decreased from other policy changes.
5. Strengthen the Work Groups: Commit the County Board to act on the work groups’ recommendations. Solicit participation in the work groups from national experts who have proven experience in community transformation, reducing incarceration, and/or decreasing racial disparities. Charge the work groups to identify how specific policy changes can be implemented.
6. Implement Better Data Systems: Immediately build a Dane County Criminal Justice Dashboard that pulls data from existing systems. Make this information, disaggregated by relevant factors, available to the general public, as well as to all parts of the criminal justice system and other social service agencies.
7. Connect People to BadgerCare and FoodShare: Make it a County priority to facilitate helping people, including those incarcerated in the County jail, to apply for BadgerCare, Affordable Care Act health insurance, FoodShare, and/or FoodShare Employment and Training.
8. Refocus Planning to Reduce Jail Space Needs: Require Mead and Hunt (M&H) to consider three or more reform scenarios that lead to different reductions in the jail population. Make clear that M&H does not have sway over the three work groups. Make any contract with M&H available for public review before being adopted.
If you have questions, please contact the MOSES Jail Task Force at mosesjailtaskforce@googlegroups.com.
Visit http://groups.google.com/group/MOSESjailtaskforce to subscribe to the MOSES Jail Task Force email list.
UNANIMOUSLY PASSED tonight by the Dane County Board. “The passage of this resolution demonstrates that when everyday people organize in solidarity, the community can significantly improve our County’s criminal justice system” said Morris Wexler, VP of MOSES, and longtime regulatory consultant. By passing resolution 556 “the County board is unequivocally stating its support for eliminating racial disparities, reducing incarceration, reducing the number of jail beds as well as its opposition to the construction of a new stand-alone jail” (RES 556, 316-319) as well as creating three community Work Groups to investigate solutions and make budget recommendations to realize the comprehensive reform of Dane County’s criminal justice system.
Don’t let another year go by without making this needed reform, which will be good for kids, for families, and for our communities.” Per David Liners: “We might be close to winning this one!”