Scott Walker – ABOLISHmke

Close Youth Prisons Part 2: the wrong way

This is the second in a three-part series about closing the illegal youth prisons in Lincoln Hills and Copper Lake (LH/CL). Part one outlined the best and fastest way to close these prisons: by eliminating the Serious Juvenile Offender Program (SJOP) and adult sentencing of youths. These bad laws were inspired by the racist “superpredator” myth which requires the state to lock some kids in extra harmful “type 1” facilities. In part two, we’re going to examine why that didn’t happen, and the foolishness that happened instead.

Ep. 21- Governor Tony Evers Could:

This is an audio version of “Governor Tony Evers could:” published at ABOLISHmke.com on October 10, 2021.

Governor Tony Evers could:

The governor, surrounded by his prisons.

…solve Wisconsin’s spiraling prison population crisis!

On the campaign trail, Tony said he would cut Wisconsin’s prison population in half. Instead, it slowly, but steadily rose under his administration until the courts closed due to COVID19. Now it’s rising again, and faster.

…pardon and release elderly and low risk people from prison!

The Wisconsin state constitution gives the governor very broad pardon power. Tony loves to talk about how he’s pardoned so many people, but NONE of those pardons are of people currently serving sentences. A fact that he cowers away from. He chose pardon criteria that exclude everyone until 5 years after they completed their sentence. That will restores some rights to some individuals, but do nothing to reduce incarceration.

Governor Evers gave up on the “people’s budget,” delivered republican budget instead

His little signing desk in a Whitefolks Bay classroom is adorable!

An audio version of this article should also be available anywhere you can subscribe to podcasts. If you cannot find it on your preferred ap, contact abolishmke@protonmail.com.

Since coming into office, Governor Tony Evers has struggled to reconcile his personal belief in bipartisanship with the highly partisan election that actually put him in office. He defeated the polarizing incumbent Scott Walker by a very slim margin of only 29,227 votes. That victory did not come from Tony Evers winning over republicans with his folksy moderate message. The good ole boys in the grand ole party stood by their man in 2018.

Some pundits have talked about Walker’s base weakening, and the difficulty of running for a third term, but the actual vote count shows that Walker got all the support anyone could ask for. There were 2.7 million voters in 2018, that’s the most ever in a Wisconsin midterm election. Nearly half of those voters went republican. Evers won because his turnout was even higher. According to analysts, his support among “young energetic” voters was key. That energy was fueled by hatred of Scott Walker and Donald Trump, not love of milquetoast Tony.

Snitch House Series

Senators Lena Taylor and Van Wanggaard, introducing their snitch house legislation on May 18.

During the May 18 public hearing on the Snitch House bill (SB124/AB258 also known as COP house bill) Lena Taylor and Van Wanggaard revealed that their co-authored, pro-cop legislation is everything we fear, and worse. We already have a long article detailing snitch houses (bootlickers call them COP houses) but, the more we learn and reflect on supporter’s statements at the hearings, the more we have to say.

There is so much to unpack from Taylor and Wanggaard’s introduction that we are going to put out a three part series, starting this week. The bill gets its first assembly committee vote on Wednesday, June 2. Please call or email the democratic members of the committee before Wednesday!

This series will cover how snitch houses:

Reduce public safety by expanding police capacity to harm communities.
Advance displacement of people of color to benefit real estate developers and landlords.
Expand the role of police, letting them absorb and determine which neighbors receive much needed community resources.

Before getting into these harms snitch houses may cause, let’s take a quick look at the hearing—and the shady politics going on behind this legislation.

Prison Expansion: What and Who We Fight

Graffiti on North Ave, Milwaukee- RiotMKE

Politicians in Madison want to build a prison, maybe two prisons. They want more cages in this state to hold people in. The leadership of both parties have prison-expansion plans in the upcoming budget, and if we do not fight back, these plans will go forward. More of our friends and neighbors will live behind bars. More people will suffer in solitary confinement. More will face racial or gender harassment, terror, negligence and abuse from prison guards as well as from medical and psychological staff.

We cannot allow this to happen. Continue reading “Prison Expansion: What and Who We Fight”

Defund the Prisons (abridged version)

Wisconsin prison boss Kevin Carr has both publicly and privately requested that prisoner advocates and anti-prison organizers help him expand funding for programming and mental health treatment in the DOC’s budget.

We emphatically reject his call for help.

Continue reading “Defund the Prisons (abridged version)”