EXPO/FREE SUCCESS EXPO/FREE started several campaigns in 2021 - Unlock the Vote and Locked Up on the Outside and EXPO-R are a few movements in progress. Despite challenges faced by the pandemic, we adapted and maintained continuous training of our members on legislative issues relating to us, and we have stayed active in the community utilizing technology and science to keep everyone safe. Our goal, our mission, is to close prison doors and open doors of opportunity. We bring people together across racial, social, and partisan lines to create a future with freedom and dignity for all. The ladies of FREE made a significant impact in 2021, bringing the challenges women face in Wisconsin’s carceral system to our community’s attention. We have done our part raising the profile of many issues impacting formerly Incarcerated and incarcerated people and our families. Through presentations and outreach, we succeeded in getting the gerrymandering issue into Milwaukee’s most prominent newspaper; Sunday front- page story! EXPO/FREE saw our input succeed within the state budget process, winning a $3 million per year increase in the Treatment Alternatives and Diversions programs, which will keep hundreds of people out of prison and thousands out of jail. The women of EXPO/FREE fought and saw amendments made to a punitive bill that will punish parents for incarceration by taking their parental rights away. That fight is ongoing, and we will be there sitting at the table, ensuring the voices of those directly impacted are heard. EXPO/FREE members spoke at hearings sponsored by the Governor and the legislature, and we created a lot of buzz. We take that as a sign that we were being taken seriously. One of EXPO/FREE’s proudest successes has been to stop the Department of Corrections from regularly referring to people in prison as “offenders.” Instead, as a direct result of EXPO/FREE’s advocacy, the DOC now calls them “persons in our care.” Dane County Sheriff adopted the same language for those in its jail at the request of EXPO/FREE.
www.expowisconsin.org
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