Tony Evers – ABOLISHmke

How to defund police and sheriff now!

People have overwhelming come out to say: we want fewer cops, and more investment in people and communities. But right now: our work is at risk!

Politicians in Milwaukee are making decisions that will either continue the city’s carceral and white supremacist approach to public safety, or depart from it to invest in people and communities. This is a time when we need the whole city talking about the budgets, and particularly about defunding police. If you haven’t contacted your local representatives yet, on both the city and county level, now is the time.

What’s at stake this week:

195 more cops. Mayor Tom Barrett proposed three police recruit classes of 65 cops each, which will cost Milwaukee $6 million. Common council will approve it next Monday unless we stop them.
Harm reduction in the jail and house of corruption (HOC). A committee of the county board is hearing a resolution about giving people held in the jail and HOC free phone calls and video visits on Friday, October 29, at 10:30am.
$3 million increase for county sheriff’s office (MCSO). County exec David Crowley proposed raises for MCSO staff, but the county board can shut him down.
$700,000 for lakefront surveillance. Crowley also proposed a system to expand MCSO surveillance and violence on the lakefront.
Divesting $11.3 million MCSO. County board members introduced 24 amendments that will take money from the sheriff and put it into human needs and real public safety.

Close Youth Prisons Part 3: forty-six million

The people’s revolution marching, September 2020.

This is the last in a three-part series about closing the illegal youth prisons in Lincoln Hills and Copper Lake (LH/CL). Part one outlined the best, fastest way to close these prisons. Part two re-examined the sordid tale of compromises that left the prisons open, and the millions of dollars the democrats are trying to spend on new ones. In this part, we’ll take a look at what could be funded with those millions instead.

The actual needs of Milwaukee youth

Democrats are trying to spend $42-46 million on a new prison in Milwaukee county that would cage 36 children. At the low end, that’s $1.17 million each child. Last February there were 22 kids from Milwaukee county in LH/CL who this new prison would be built for. That’s about $2 million each child. That’s ridiculous.

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.

Behind the headlines on the governor’s violence prevention funding

On October 13, governor Evers almost kind of started making an investment in alternatives to state violence in Milwaukee. He came here to announce $45 million from Wisconsin’s recovery act (ARPA) funds would go into “safer communities and violence prevention.”

Unfortunately, as with his pardon announcements, this is another of his misleading headlines. Behind the headlines, nearly half ($20 million) of the allocated funds are going to supporting victim services through the department of justice. We know them from their work obstructing the release of old law prisoners. That is not violence prevention.

Close Wisconsin’s illegal youth prisons NOW!

Fireworks set off outside the prison in protest and solidarity with the youth, September 2021.

This article is the first in a three-part series.

The Lincoln Hills and Copper Lake youth prisons (LH/CL) in Irma, WI have been illegally confining children since July 1, 2021. More than seventy percent of the kids are Black, and nearly half are from Milwaukee county. Starting in 2010, kids in these prisons successfully exposed horrific abuse practices by staff. By 2017, the kids and their advocates had drawn investigations from the media, the state, and federal agencies. They built so much momentum that the legislature passed and the governor signed Wisconsin act 185, which required that both prisons close by January 1, 2021.

Unfortunately, when that date approached, rather than closing the prisons, politicians passed a new law pushing closure back to July 1. The second deadline passed this summer, and the prisons were not closed. No new law extended the deadline. The state just continued operating illegally.

Which sends a pretty clear statement: Wisconsin politicians are willing to ignore and violate state law when it comes to abusing Black kids from Milwaukee.

Big government republicans introduce liberty-restricting bills

MAGA republicans v the cops they claim to love on January 6th during the dumbest insurrection.

Republicans have long claimed to be the party of small government. Their policies almost always tend to revolve around opposition to the dreaded “government overreach,” a key talking point of theirs. Nowadays, they stand united against anything that has to do with vaccines & masks. Historically, they’ve opposed seat belt laws & taxing cigarettes, among other widely popular policy proposals. They stand for individual liberty!

That is, unless it is your right not to be kidnapped and put in a cage or murdered in the street. Republicans stand firmly behind the armed gangs of terrorists that patrol our communities and “keep us in line.” On its face, a believer in small government supporting police reeks of hypocrisy. Until you consider that these believers in small government are the ideological descendants of slave owners and genociders and that the function of the police is to maintain white supremacy and disrupt worker collaboration & unionization. They are class traitors plain and simple. Which is why “small government” conservatives support them. They’re pawns in the game against the poor.

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.

September parole commission notes

Commission chair Tate joining the meeting on zoom from his home balcony.

Audio version

This is part of an ongoing series where we attend the monthly staff meeting of the parole commission and make notes available to the public and to captives held under the old law (sentenced before 2000).

September’s meeting was on Wednesday the 1st. It was attended by commission chair, John Tate II, all three commissioners, and two records associates. The public portion was about 20 minutes long, and there was a “no action” case they discussed in closed session afterward.

Gradual change

Tate started the meeting similarly to the last few meetings, bringing up a few tweaks that suggest he is making gradual changes to the parole commission process. First, he indicated that parole commissioners should use third person rather than first person language when describing their choices. So, rather than saying for example, “I recommend a two month defer” they should say “the commissioner recommends a two month defer.” Tate said this “better indicates that these are the agency’s choices, not individuals.”

Ep16- Parole commission notes

This is an audio version of “September parole commission notes” published at ABOLISHmke.com on September 9, 2021.