Fox Valley Technical College, 1825 N Bluemound Dr, Appleton
Meeting will be held in Room HS114 A/B. Use Entrance 16.
Rep. Evan Goyke (18th District - Milwaukee) will be joined by formerly incarcerated individuals to talk about the financial and human costs—including being shipped out of state—of over-incarceration in Wisconsin. Goyke is the author of a plan (“Inmate 501”) and legislative package to convert Lincoln Hills and Copper Lake Schools from juvenile corrections centers to AODA facilities for adults. (The plan was first presented publicly on November 29, 2017, more than a month before Governor Walker spoke about a similar approach.)
You can find Rep. Goyke’s analysis and plan here. A video of the November 29 presentation may be found here.
Click here to find WISDOM's extensive report on Crimeless Revocations.
Click here to download the Executive Summary.
Click here to download personal stories by victims of Wisconsin's unjust revocations policy.
Appleton Sanctuary Outreach Ministry, 1331 E Wisconsin Ave, Appleton
Rudy Bankston’s presentation, originally scheduled for April 14, 2018, was postponed due to severe weather conditions. The presentation has been rescheduled, and will occur at 3 pm on Saturday, May 5.
Adjunct professor at Edgewood College and full-time Restorative Justice Coach Roderick “Rudy” Bankston was wrongly convicted and handed a life sentence in his youth. Deeply wounded and experiencing a severe identity crisis, he turned his prison cell into a classroom. Today he is an educator, activist, and published author. His powerful story about his experience as a survivor of the school-to-prison pipeline offers key insights into the paradox of resiliency fueled by systemic injustice.
Free and open to the public. Co-sponsored by ESTHER, EXPO and Appleton Sanctuary Outreach Ministry.
At this forum, WISDOM leaders from around the state will be asking gubernatorial candidates very specific questions about their intentions in the areas of criminal justice reform (including parole, crimeless revocations, treatment alternatives to incarceration, Milwaukee Secure Detention Facility, solitary confinement), public transportation, childhood poverty, health care, immigration, education, mining.
Confirmed candidates so far include:
Matt Flynn
Andy Gronik
Mike McCabe
Mahlon Mitchell
Kelda Roys
Kathleen Vinehout
Dana Wachs
Candidates unable to attend, expressing regrets: Tony Evers, Paul Soglin
Also invited, awaiting response: Scott Walker
Hosted by the WISDOM network.
Car-pooling from Northeast Wisconsin is being arranged, including reimbursement of cost of gasoline for those who drive. Contact ESTHER by phone (920-843-8083) or email (office@esther-foxvalley.org) to make arrangements.
This event is the fourth annual gathering to raise awareness of the local impacts of addiction and to bring light and support to families affected by addiction.
The three 2018 Wisconsin Faces of Addiction and Recovery Quilts will be on display, showing the names and faces of 577 people who have died because of addiction. Red squares indicate someone who is in active addiction, gray squares indicate someone is incarcerated for addiction, and white squares feature people who are in recovery, which shows hope and success!
Bev Kelley-Miller and Natalie Coenen, members of the ESTHER Prison Reform Task Force, will share their stories. Senator Tammy Baldwin will also attend to share her own family’s story about how the addiction crisis hits close to home and to highlight the efforts of event organizers in lighting the way and supporting families touched by the crisis.
Lawrence University Wriston Hall Auditorium (S. Lawe St. south of the Library)
James Forman Jr., author of the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Nonfiction for Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America, will deliver a talk that explores the rise of mass incarceration and its disproportionate impact on people of color. The talk will be followed by a signing of his book, which is hailed as “superb and shattering” by The New York Times.
Forman explores how the war on crime that began in the 1970s was supported by many African American leaders in the nation’s urban centers and seeks to understand why. His exploration began when Forman served as a public defender in Washington, D.C. After he failed to keep a 15-year-old out of a juvenile detention center, he wondered how the mayor, the judge, the prosecuting attorney, the arresting officer, even the bailiff—all of whom were black—could send so many of their own to a grim, incarcerated future.
Now a professor at Yale Law School, Forman will explore the answers in his talk. He will show how good intentions and pressing dangers of the last 40 years have shaped the get-tough approach in the culture at large and in black neighborhoods.
This event is free and open to the public, and no registration is required.
[The text of this article draws heavily from the LU press release about this event, found here: http://go.lawrence.edu/hwst]
EXPO (Ex-Incarcerated People Organizing, a project of WISDOM), under the leadership of previously imprisoned women and men, works to end mass incarceration, eliminate all forms of structural discrimination against formerly incarcerated people, and restore formerly incarcerated people to full participation in the life of our communities.
Melissa Ludin is the new EXPO organizer in the Fox Cities. She works closely with ESTHER and its Prison Reform Task Force, as well as providing state-wide support. Here is how Melissa describes herself and her work:
I have been a leader and a board member of the organization since May 2016. As a formerly incarcerated woman, I lead with an unrelenting passion for criminal justice reform and reentry peer support…. My goal is to build trust and provide support, a mission I am still pursuing.
Madison Masonic Center, 301 Wisconsin Ave, Madison
WISDOM’s Madison Action Day
A day of collective action with leaders across Wisconsin in our state capitol.
Time is Short - Register Now!
It’s less than a week until Madison Action Day! There’s already a large group going from the Fox Cities, you can still be part of it.
Here’s your chance to join leaders from all parts of Wisconsin in a day of action and movement-building to get our issues and values on the minds of legislators while they are making their budget decisions. We’ll be emphasizing the values of the Beloved Community: radical inclusion, reconciliation, and living for the seventh generation. $40 cost includes transportation. Sponsorships available on request.
Fox Valley Technical College, Room E130 (Entrance 10), Appleton
Join us to watch Milwaukee 53206, a powerful documentary that chronicles the lives of those affected by incarceration in America's most incarcerated city. This film tells the story of people from Milwaukee and across the United States who live with the daily effects of mass incarceration. There is no charge to attend.
Immediately following the screening, there will be a panel discussion chaired by Dr. Sylvia Carey Butler, Associate Vice Chancellor for Academic Support of Inclusive Excellence, UW-Oshkosh. The panel features people with personal or professional experience in the harmful effects of Wisconsin’s over-use of jails and prisons and expertise in alternatives.
Meeting will be held in Room HS114 A/B. Use Entrance 16.
Adjunct professor at Edgewood College and full-time Restorative Justice Coach Roderick “Rudy” Bankston was wrongly convicted and handed a life sentence in his youth. Deeply wounded and experiencing a severe identity crisis, he turned his prison cell into a classroom. Today he is an educator, activist, and published author. His powerful story about his experience as a survivor of the school-to-prison pipeline offers key insights into the paradox of resiliency fueled by systemic injustice.
This event is the fourth annual gathering to raise awareness of the local impacts of addiction and to bring light and support to families affected by addiction.
Bev Kelley-Miller and Natalie Coenen, members of the ESTHER Prison Reform Task Force, will share their stories. Senator Tammy Baldwin will also attend to share her own family’s story about how the addiction crisis hits close to home and to highlight the efforts of event organizers in lighting the way and supporting families touched by the crisis. 
EXPO (Ex-Incarcerated People Organizing, a project of WISDOM), under the leadership of previously imprisoned women and men, works to end mass incarceration, eliminate all forms of structural discrimination against formerly incarcerated people, and restore formerly incarcerated people to full participation in the life of our communities.
Here is how Melissa describes herself and her work:
Join us to watch 
