Wisconsin Watch

1 week ago | wisconsinwatch.org | Devin Blake

Reading Time: 3 minutes As Wisconsin’s prison population climbs toward pre-pandemic levels, Senate Bill 153 seeks to expand alternatives to incarceration. Wisconsin’s Treatment Alternatives and Diversion program was established in 2005 to provide counties with funding to create programs to divert adults with nonviolent criminal charges into community-based treatment for substance abuse.

1 week ago | wisconsinwatch.org | Tom Kertscher

Reading Time: < 1 minute Wisconsin Watch partners with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. Read our methodology to learn how we check claims. In April, 2,004 residents of Menominee County in northeast Wisconsin received benefits from the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). That’s about 46% of the county’s 4,300 residents.

1 week ago | wisconsinwatch.org | Devin Blake

Reading Time: 3 minutes As the Milwaukee Police Department moves to expand its use of facial recognition technology, a June report from the federal government finds this technology continues to disproportionately misidentify people of color. Elected officials and civil rights groups have been raising this concern as a clear reason why MPD’s plan should be paused or rejected entirely.  MPD says there are ways to address this limitation.

1 week ago | wisconsinwatch.org | Tom Kertscher

Reading Time: 4 minutes On a day of high drama and chaos — Donald Trump’s military parade, nationwide street protests and a political assassination in Minnesota — Wisconsin Democrats convened in Lake Delton to try to forge a way forward. The theme of the party’s state convention was “the road to 2026,” with elections for governor, the Legislature and Congress at stake.

1 week ago | wisconsinwatch.org | Alexander Shur

Reading Time: 3 minutes Wisconsin Republicans want to require that all proposed constitutional amendments come with a plain-language explanation, a move that they say would help voters better understand complex ballot questions. The proposal has drawn broad support. But some lawmakers are concerned about whether the measure as proposed would leave the interpretation of ballot questions vulnerable to partisanship.