By Alexandria Staubach
A group of system-impacted individuals is building a coalition seeking to disrupt stagnation around criminal justice reform by using connection. Personal connection with legislators will be at the forefront. The group plans to build a relationship with every member of the Legislature, regardless of party or politics. Shannon Ross, founder and executive director of The Community, leads the effort. WJI recently sat down with Ross to talk about the coalition, its goals, and how they plan to achieve them. “As a society we should seek more collaboration,” said Ross. “There are (legislators) who genuinely agree with us,” he told WJI, “and maybe our goals are unpopular with their constituents, but we are going to find a way to connect with them … a way to help their constituents understand.” Coalitions are common among organizations, but this group intentionally includes individuals regardless of what other affiliations or professions they have. Ross hopes everyone involved will have the ability to act independently from positions that other organizations may take. Messaging will be central to the group’s success, Ross said. “We need big numbers,” he said. “We need a lot of engaged people to make this work.” The coalition includes individuals from all over Wisconsin. So far, everyone participating has engaged in policy work and two are already registered lobbyists—numbers the group hopes to expand, Ross said. While the current group members are mostly directly system-impacted individuals, Ross wants to avoid only engaging those who are system impacted. “We need everyone,” he said. Structurally, the coalition is intentionally built in opposition to the experience people have within the system, meaning there is no top-down hierarchy. It is organized from the middle outward, comprised solely of committees. While the group will have a “coalition coordinator,” no one individual will be a central figure. Ross does not anticipate winning that role. He hopes he will be able to fade into the background of coalition’s work. Ross says he was inspired by gridlock in the Legislature. He has observed “a consistent failure to get anything across the finish line that was something serious,” he told WJI. He hopes the group will be able to cross party lines and end what he described as “two decades without any real policy change.” Over the summer, the group participated in a retreat, speaking with Milwaukee County Circuit Court Chief Judge Carl Ashley and former Department of Corrections secretary Kevin Carr, who left that job in 2024. While the group is still fleshing out all of its goals, Ross said he anticipates their short list will include capping supervision, and overturning truth in sentencing will be a long-term project. The coalition is still recruiting members. According to the Wisconsin Division of Community Correction year-end review, 18,909 people were on extended supervision at the end of December. Extended supervision can last decades, requiring adherence to 18 or more rules during all that time. People often find themselves back in custody for rule violations alone. In November 2024, 48% of people admitted to Wisconsin prisons were admitted solely due to revocation of supervision, regardless of whether an individual had new pending criminal charges; 16.6% of admissions were for revocations resulting from a new criminal sentence.
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