Reading Time: 4 minutes The search for someone to lead the Wisconsin Department of Corrections, or DOC, is in progress. In a press release, Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers announced the retirement of Kevin Carr, who served as secretary of the DOC for roughly five years. Evers applauded Carr’s accomplishments, including expansion of educational opportunities for people who are incarcerated as well as increased access to medication-assisted treatment, a treatment often used for opioid use disorder. But some people who are currently incarcerated are not so quick to praise Carr.  Prisoners thr ..read more

Reading Time: 3 minutes Diamond Riley plans to pursue a new goal in life once she’s released from the Milwaukee County Community Reintegration Center. “I want to work with justice-involved youth and young adults and help them overcome the challenges I had,” Riley said. “I found my passion.”  She now has the skills to help her achieve her goal thanks to a workshop that prepares people for successful reentry after incarceration. In March, Riley, 22, completed Building a Path to Success, a six-week workshop of the My Way Out program offered to individuals at the Milwaukee County Co ..read more

Reading Time: 4 minutes New legal filings ask a federal judge to appoint an external monitor to oversee conditions at a troubled state prison.  For more than a year, state officials have been restricting the activities of inmates at Waupun Correctional Institution under what the Wisconsin Department of Corrections refers to as “modified movement status.” Prison officials have cited safety concerns amid severe short-staffing. Officials say they’ve eased some restrictions in recent months, although prisoners at Waupun still face limits on their recreation time and are cut off from in-person ..read more

Reading Time: 3 minutes FlexRide Milwaukee celebrated its 50,000th ride in January. But although the program continues to be in high demand, its future is unclear.  Launched in 2022, FlexRide Milwaukee is an on-demand transportation service that provides affordable transportation to inner-city residents who work in Franklin, Oak Creek, New Berlin or Menomonee Falls. After serving only 11 riders in its first month, FlexRide now averages 4,000 rides each month, said Dave Steele, executive director of MobiliSE, which operates FlexRide with financial support from various city ..read more

Reading Time: 2 minutes Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletter to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup. This story is published in partnership with The Associated Press. Another inmate has been found dead at a troubled Wisconsin prison. Donald Maier, 62, died at Waupun Correctional Institution on Feb. 22, state Department of Corrections spokesperson Kevin Hoffman said. The Dodge County Sheriff’s Office and the county medical examiner are investigating, and no further information was available, Hoffman said. Maier was ..read more

Reading Time: 3 minutes News414 is a service journalism collaboration between Wisconsin Watch and Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service that addresses the specific issues, interests, perspectives and information needs identified by residents of central city Milwaukee neighborhoods. Learn more at our website or sign up for our texting service here. Gary Kirksey could see his 6-year-old daughter’s pink sweater – her favorite color – through the glass. He could also see that her shoes matched the sweater. It’s details like these that people who are incarcerated can’t gather from a mere phone call ..read more

Reading Time: 9 minutes Reporters examined staffing and payroll data and interviewed dozens of guards and inmates for this article, which is part of a series about the Wisconsin Department of Corrections by The New York Times’ Local Investigations Fellowship. Click here to read highlights from the story Wisconsin officials failed to take significant steps to slow a hemorrhaging of corrections officers until last year — a decade after the earliest warning signs emerged. Current and former correctional officers say Act 10, a sweeping 2011 law that gutted most public employees’ ability to collec ..read more

Reading Time: 17 minutes Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletter to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup. This story is published in partnership with The Associated Press. A hidden path to America’s dinner tables begins in Angola, Louisiana, at an unlikely source – a former Southern slave plantation that is now the country’s largest maximum-security prison. Unmarked trucks packed with prison-raised cattle roll out of the Louisiana State Penitentiary, where men are sentenced to hard labor and forced to work, for pennie ..read more

Reading Time: < 1 minute Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletter to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup. This story is published in partnership with The Associated Press. A northeastern Wisconsin lumber company has been fined nearly $300,000 by federal safety regulators for continuing to expose workers to amputation and other dangers years after an employee was killed on the job. The logo of the U.S. Department of Labor, which includes OSHA, is seen in this Aug. 10, 2007, photo. (Michael Sohn / The Associated Pres ..read more

Reading Time: 13 minutes Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup. Click here to read highlights from the story Outagamie County Judge Mark McGinnis is under investigation after jailing a cement contractor who appeared before him for an unrelated felony probation hearing in 2021. The contractor was working for a woman who also works at the Outagamie County courthouse. Legal experts question the basis for McGinnis’ action and note criminal hearings cannot be used to settle civil disput ..read more