Last Monday, a man was fatally shot by police in Milwaukee.
Officers claim the man fired a weapon. However, the victim’s sister states, “He’s had problems but he wasn’t the person who would hurt someone…I just hope they get justice”.
This is just one of the many tragic fatalities that happen each year at the hands of the police.
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The First Step Act was passed in 2018. The act required that the federal prison system provide wider access to medications for individuals suffering from opioid addiction. The goal was to salvage lives, as the weeks following release are “a particularly vulnerable time for formerly incarcerated people”.
However, only a small fraction of prisons are receiving these medications. Wisconsin in particular, solely receives Vivitrol, an opioid blocker.
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According to a new report by Movement Advancement Project, laws that address bias-motivated crimes prove inconsistent across the country. According to the following article, “Wisconsin is one of about half of all states that don’t require hate crime reporting by law enforcement, as well as one of about two-thirds nationwide that doesn’t legally require office hate crime training.”
Within the Wisconsin criminal justice system, many flaws exist when it comes to data collection and reporting of bias-motivated violence.
Before the coronavirus pandemic, an overcrowding issue existed in Wisconsin prisons. However, the pandemic exacerbated this issue.
According to the Department of Corrections, “one out of every two inmates in Wisconsin’s prisons have tested positive for the virus, a rate four times higher than the state’s general population”.
Additionally, with the backlog of court cases caused by the pandemic, those awaiting trial have stayed in county jails that were not equipped for long term stays.
Chief Deputy Chad Billeb states, “Pandemic or no pandemic, if we can’t get a handle on the massive backlog in the court system if something doesn’t move, we’re going to need a 1,000-bed jail”.
