Putting a Face on Wisconsin Treatment Courts

RehabilitationMy blog post several weeks ago discussed the increase in the number of treatment courts in Wisconsin (see The Continued Expansion of Treatment Courts in Wisconsin). My goal was to outline the issue from a policy standpoint. As a follow up, I would like to offer a more personal perspective on treatment courts, one that most members of the public do not have an opportunity to see: the “face” of an individual successfully completing treatment court.

One major author of each story is a dedicated and collaborative treatment court team. Although the composition of each team may vary, membership generally includes a judge and representatives from the District Attorney, State Public Defender, Department of Corrections, and local treatment provider. Depending on the court, law enforcement, human services, and others may be represented as well.

K’s Story.  Prior to court, K had been in and out of mental hospitals and jails. For the first three weeks that K was in the mental health treatment court, his odor permeated through the courtroom. He would keep his head down and would often wear sunglasses in court. He did not respond to his defense attorney. All members of the team stepped beyond their traditional roles to work together to find solutions for K’s individual needs. After four months of participation in the treatment court, he was living in a new apartment. He showers, holds his head up, and plays guitar at open-mic night. He is just finalizing the requirements for earning his GED.

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Enforcing Surrogacy Agreements in Wisconsin

scan2Let’s say you are part of a married couple in Wisconsin. Due to a leukemia diagnosis and treatment for that disease, your eggs are no longer viable. Doctors agree that you are currently in good health and the disease is “a nonissue,” but your husband and you want children and you cannot bear them. A friend has offered to help you out. This woman has been your friend since grade school; you’ve each participated in the other’s wedding.  You and your husband are godparents to her youngest daughter. Your friend and her husband have five children of their own and have said they are done expanding their family. Her husband even had a vasectomy. Twice in four years she has offered to carry and bear a child for you.  Finally, you agree.

You and your husband visit a lawyer, and your friend and her husband visit a different lawyer.  The gist of the arrangement is that your friend will be artificially inseminated with your husband’s sperm. She will carry and bear the child, but she agrees that you and your husband alone would raise the child and she agrees to terminate her parental rights to allow you to adopt the child.  She would still be able to see the child; after all, you have long been friends and you plan to continue to see each other through social visits. You’re a bit concerned, though, that your friend may have difficulty giving up a child to whom she has biological ties, but she assures you she can do it. Your lawyers create numerous drafts of your agreement and each revises these drafts until finally all of you agree that what is written accurately reflects your understanding of the arrangement.  You all sign this agreement in November.  By this time, your friend is already almost five months’ pregnant.  She is due the following March.

After all of you sign the agreement, your relationship with your friend crumbles, and before the child is born your friend informs you that she will no longer terminate her parental rights to the child, as she had agreed.  Furthermore, she wants to have custody of the child.  In March, she gives birth to the baby.

Now what?

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Truth in Sentencing: We Like the Symbolism, But Have Mixed Feelings About the Practical Policy

Two-thirds of Wisconsin voters support truth in sentencing, the 1998 law that abolished parole in the state and required prisoners to serve the full term of their sentences.  At the same time, a majority of Wisconsin voters (54.5 percent) agreed that once a prisoner serves half of his term, he should be released and given a less costly form of punishment if he can demonstrate that he is no longer a threat to society.  These seemingly inconsistent opinions point to complex, mixed feelings about sentencing policy in the state.

The numbers come from the Marquette Law School Poll, which earlier this week released the results of its latest survey of Wisconsin voters regarding politics and public policy.  This edition of the poll included a rich array of questions relating to truth in sentencing.  (Full disclosure: I collaborated in the design of these questions with Poll Director Charles Franklin and Professor Darren Wheelock of the Marquette Social and Cultural Sciences Department.)

The poll results this year were remarkably consistent with results from a year ago, when some of the same questions were posed.  Last July, 63% supported truth in sentencing, while 55% supported release opportunities at the half-way mark.  An even more decisive two-thirds majority supported awarding credits toward early release to recognize prisoners’ rehabilitative accomplishments, which also violates truth in sentencing (at least in the particularly hard-line way in which it was adopted in Wisconsin).

What gives?  

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