Community Voices Reflect on the 2023 Civil Rights Agenda: Pressing Issues for the Civil Rights Movement
Criminal Justice Reform Advances Civil Rights
As we celebrate Martin Luther King Day in 2023, it is important to reflect on the progress we have made towards Dr. King’s vision, but also to emphasize the work we still need to do to create a more equitable and inclusive society where all of our neighbors can achieve the American Dream.
Wisconsin and Dane County have really struggled with racial disparities in education and economic opportunities but most glaringly in our Criminal Justice system. Dane County over-incarcerates Black and Brown people and we are lagging behind many reforms that have already been implemented on the state and local level in other jurisdictions.
We are seeing a strong push towards expungement reform in the United States in red, blue purple states. When a criminal record is expunged, it is destroyed or sealed and this helps people attain employment, housing and pursue a better life for themselves and their loved ones.
An estimated 1.4 million people in Wisconsin have criminal records. Wisconsin has some of the most restrictive expungement laws, which means if it is very difficult to seal cases from public view. This hinders a person's reintegration into society. Currently expungement is limited by age (25 years old) and charge classification and an expungement determination has to be made at sentencing. In addition, there is no provision to expunge non-convictions.
We have seen bi-partisan support for expungement reform in Wisconsin at the state level, but even though these reforms would likely have the support of lawmakers, they have not been brought forward for votes. It is time to stop playing politics with people’s lives and join the dozens of states who have enacted expungement reform.
We also must work hard to limit the number of people who are entering the criminal justice system and work towards reducing the harm this has towards their lives. On the local level, we can work towards night and weekend court so people don’t sit in jail and wait before they can see a judge. We can work towards bail reform so people are not in jail because they can’t afford to be released while awaiting trial. We should continue the systems change we saw during COVID to cite and release people rather than bringing them to jail for non-violent offenses.
We must also not repeat the mistakes of the past and spend hundreds of millions on building new jails until we have fully invested ourselves in the Criminal Justice reforms which will work to keep people out of those jails.
Most importantly, we should examine the root causes that have caused them to have contact with the Criminal Justice system in the first place and invest in all communities so all of our neighbors have opportunity.
Dr. King said, “True peace is not merely the absence of tension: it is the presence of justice.” We need to re-examine all of our systems that lead to over-incarceration and untangle the structures and institutions that have caused this to become the status quo. Dr. King would not stand for the staggering racial disparities we have in our community and to honor his legacy, neither should we.
Mass Incarceration Is a Civil Rights Issue
As we enter the year 2023, we mark sixty years since the greatest period of civil rights reform our nation has ever experienced. For 60 years, we have been able to celebrate the massive social and political progress that has allowed more Americans to enjoy more freedom in our communities. While we celebrate the progress we have made, there is still much to do as our nation continues to struggle against our legacy of racial oppression. Today, we must recognize the threats that exist to the civil rights of each and every American in the modern era. We must continue the hard work of civil rights legends like Martin Luther King Jr., and build a society that values each and every person, no matter their race, religion, orientation, or identity.
As I reflect on the current forces that threaten the civil rights of Americans, it is clear we must address an apparatus that is used to perpetuate racial, social, political, and economic injustice: our nation’s system of mass incarceration. The United States has the highest incarcerated population of any country in the world. Our current criminal-justice system is excessively punitive, promotes over-policing of communities of color, disproportionately incarcerates communities of color and economically disadvantaged communities, and disenfranchises individuals during and after their involvement with the system. If we want a system that truly values justice, we must address these inequities.
Our use of incarceration at such high rates is deeply disturbing when we fully understand the detrimental impact it has on our society. People in our correctional system serve in every social role of the community. They are our parents, siblings, family, friends, neighbors, workers, and fellow citizens. Yet, when entering prison, incarcerated folks are stripped of the various titles they hold in their communities, only to be viewed in terms of their criminal status. We isolate them from their families and communities, and upon release, we stigmatize them for their justice-involvement and deny them opportunities to successfully reintegrate into society.
The majority of the people incarcerated today will one day reenter our communities. Despite this, formerly incarcerated people reenter a world that denies them access to job opportunities, housing, healthcare, and other necessities to support themselves and their reintegration into their communities. Additionally, due to justice-involvement, some people have their rights stripped away and never reinstated, including the right to vote and their ability to participate in many government programs.
“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”
As I read the wise words written by Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., I cannot think of a more appropriate sentiment to describe the effects of an unmitigated system of mass incarceration. We cannot allow this level of injustice exist within any system in our society. We deserve a community based on justice in all aspects, and for all people.
We must redefine what it means to keep our communities safe, beyond and before incarceration. I will use my position as the ranking member of the Assembly Committee on Corrections, and on the Legislative Council Study Committee on Reentry to support measures that will reduce recidivism and support a more equitable correctional system for all.
As we move forward, let us invest resources into all communities, but especially those that have been irreparably damaged by our nation’s system of mass incarceration. Let us welcome those who have been incarcerated back into our communities with the opportunity for healthy reintegration. We can make justice a reality, and we can make Wisconsin a better place to live and work for everyone in our community.
Health and Voting Are Basic Civil Rights
Our community needs to continue to be a force to protect our voting rights and strengthen our advocacy for health equity in urban and rural areas across the United States.
In 2013, voter suppression efforts was at full speed starting with the Supreme Court ruling in a 5-4 vote shattered the provision in the Voting Rights Act that prohibited states from changing their elections laws without approval from the federal government. Voter suppression is done by purging eligible voters from the rolls, implementing stricter voter ID laws, closure of polling locations, reducing early and absentee voting, and reducing the use and location of drop boxes, which disenfranchises voters of color at every turn.
Between 2013 and 2016, approximately four million names were removed from the voting rolls. The state of Texas closed 750 polling locations followed by Georgia and Arizona. In some states voters were purged at a rate forty percent higher than states with no history of voter suppression. In Texas, for example, officials in the 50 counties that gained the most Black and Latinx residents between 2012 and 2018 closed 542 polling sites, compared to just 34 closures in the 50 counties that gained the fewest Black and Latinx residents. In Georgia’s 2020 primary, 80 polling locations were closed in Atlanta, Georgia, which has the largest Black population, forcing 16,000 residents to use a single polling place.
These presence of these obstacles gives our community an opportunity to address suppression by prioritizing, and combining our voices to the conversation to find the most effective action to reverse the wave of voter suppression. Our inspiration to continue to fight should be the record number of individuals that stood in line for hours with no water or chair and walked into the polling location proudly to cast their vote in the last election.
Health disparities affect our quality of life and life span. The CDC describes health equity as the state in which everyone has a fair and honest opportunity to attain their highest level of health. We know that in order to reach health equality, we need the health system to value everyone equally and to continually address social determinants of health which baseline is rooted in racism, unethical practices that deliberately lead to inequitable health outcomes and indifference to some groups of people. There is no surprise that the largest population of Black Americans in the United States, 58 percent, live in the South where health disparities are at their greatest.
The health disparity statistics are clear:
Black children are ten times more likely to die from gun violence, and ten times more likely to die from asthma complications. Black adults are four times more likely to be victims of gun violence, and two times more likely to have a limb/limbs amputated, five times more likely to have kidney disease, and loss of vision from diabetes. Black women are 40 percent more likely to die from breast cancer. Other health issues are heart diseases, stroke, cancer, influenza, pneumonia, HIV/AIDS impact African Americans more than any counterpart groups.
Our community must focus on raising public awareness and engaging health providers of the racial ethnic disparities in medical care. They must encourage providers to expand their reach in underserved communities, and increase their knowledge of base causes and interventions to reduce disparities. Whenever possible government, non-profits, health providers need to inform the community of options for health insurance
In addition, we know that there are other factors in maintaining good health like affordable housing, workplace environment, financial sustainability, nutrition, and more. Because these are elements to having good health, we must include all communities, and our youth by providing an opportunity to our youth to be engaged and bring to the table their experience and including their perspective of world events through their windows. We must combine these with those of adults who have the advantage of experience, historical knowledge, references and resources. Bringing them together brings new synergy to the discussion, collaborating on solutions and creating a successful path into the future.
Finally, we need to have partnerships on both sides of the political aisle, bringing together those who believe that these anticipated outcomes are not good for our nation. They believe that we can work together to create a better pathway for our combined voices to be heard. We can do this with people like you and me – ordinary people doing extraordinary things that results in a movement for the betterment of a nation, a state, and our community
Our Public Health County agencies, Federal Health and Human Services, Schools of Medicine, Universities, and Health providers must join forces for establishing a conversation with communities for changes in health care that create health equity for all. In addition, our representatives on the federal level must stand for expanding voting rights by passing the John R Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act of 2021. This bill would restore and strengthen the parts of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that would require certain jurisdictions to seek federal approval before certain changes to their voting laws. Complacency is no longer an option in 2023.
