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Community Justice Conference Follow-Up

Post author:Michael M. O'Hear
Post published:April 4, 2009
Post category:Criminal Law & Process Milwaukee Speakers at Marquette

As discussed in an earlier post, the Law School recently hosted a very successful conference on community justice in Wisconsin. More than 200 government officials, lawyers, and citizens came together to discuss how the criminal justice system can be improved at the local level through enhanced interagency collaboration and grass-roots citizen engagement. The Conference website has now been updated to include audio and video of the Conference, reports, and links to blogs and commentary to keep the conversation moving forward. Still to come on the website are workgroup reports and conference evaluation results. Thanks to Assistant Dean Dan Idzikowski for his leadership of this important Law School initiative.

Is Governance Reform in the Future for Milwaukee Public Schools?

Post author:Mike Gousha
Post published:February 25, 2009
Post category:Education & Law Milwaukee Speakers at Marquette

There is growing consensus that the Milwaukee Public Schools are at a critical moment in their history. Faced with daunting fiscal challenges last year, some school board members talked openly about dissolving the district, only to later amend their comments. It was a symbolic protest, they said, an attempt to draw attention to the district’s dismal financial outlook. But the horse was out of the barn. The board’s “dissolution discussion” opened the door to new debate about MPS’s future. An independent review of the district’s fiscal situation, paid for by local foundations, was commissioned and should be made public soon. Once that happens, Governor Doyle is expected to weigh in on the district’s future course. What that path will be is still uncertain, but last week, we had a fascinating discussion here at the Law School about the possibility of changing the way MPS is governed.

The event was co-sponsored by the Greater Milwaukee Foundation, and came on the heels of a study that examined five other districts that had changed their governance. The study was funded by the GMF and conducted by the Public Policy Forum. We’ve posted a transcript of the event, which featured MPS Superintendent Bill Andrekopoulos, former Superintendent and Distinguished Professor of Education at Marquette University Howard Fuller, Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce President Tim Sheehy, Milwaukee School Board Director Jennifer Morales, State Representative Polly Williams, Milwaukee Teachers’ Education Association President Dennis Oulahan, and Milwaukee Common Council President Willie Hines.

You can always listen to the webcast of our event, but the evening had a revealing dynamic to it that makes for equally interesting reading.

Community Justice in Wisconsin

Post author:Michael M. O'Hear
Post published:February 13, 2009
Post category:Criminal Law & Process Milwaukee Speakers at Marquette Wisconsin Criminal Law & Process

I am looking forward to the Law School’s 2009 Public Service Conference, which will address “The Future of Community Justice in Wisconsin.” Organized by our Assistant Dean for Public Service, Dan Idzikowski, the Conference will take place on Friday, February 20. Dan has supplied the following post to explain the significance of “community justice” and why it is such an important topic today, particularly for anyone interested in the fairness and effectiveness of the criminal justice system:

Community justice councils, or criminal justice coordinating councils, have been established in several communities across Wisconsin. These councils bring together key local decision-makers to address the coordination, cost, and effectiveness of the criminal justice system in their area. Milwaukee County, which has the State’s largest concentration of offenders and criminal justice resources, recently established its own Community Justice Council. Remarkably, this council has brought together leadership across the political spectrum to address crime and corrections in the Milwaukee area. The Marquette Law School Public Service conference is designed to support this collaboration and bring together criminal justice experts to lend their counsel to these efforts. For example, Jeremy Travis, the keynote speaker, is the President of the preeminent John Jay School of Criminal Justice at the City University of New York, the former director of the National Institute of Justice at the U.S. Justice Department, and the author of several books and studies on community corrections and reentry issues.

Why is community justice a critical public issue at this time? The past two decades have seen an explosion in Wisconsin’s prison and jail populations. Since 1990 over a dozen new state-operated correctional facilities were brought on line, and existing institutions were expanded. The cost of providing corrections services in Wisconsin grew from $178.4 million in 1990, to $583.4 million in 2000, to $1.2 billion in the current biennium.