Victory for justice-impacted mothers and families in Wisconsin!
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Wisconsin, with pro bono assistance from Quarles & Brady LLP, petitioned a Dane County Circuit Court to order that the state Department of Corrections (DOC) offer mothers incarcerated or under community supervision the opportunity to participate in a program that would allow them to continue parenting their children under the age of one with special accommodations and programming.
For more than 30 years, a long-overlooked state statute – referred to as the “mother-young child care program” – has required the DOC to provide programming that, among other things, allows pregnant and postpartum individuals who are incarcerated or on supervised release to retain physical custody of their infants and be held in the least restrictive custody.
The DOC failed to offer this program, and officials wrongly argued that the agency doesn’t need to follow the law because it is an “old statute and there is no funding for it.” However, the statute, Wis. Stat. 301.049, makes this program mandatory.
The ACLU and Quarles & Brady LLP represented two Wisconsin women in DOC custody: one who was pregnant and due in June of 2025, and a second who gave birth in DOC custody in 2023. DOC denied or ignored their requests to participate in the mandatory statutory program.
On February 6, 2025, a Dane County Circuit Court judge ruled that the DOC must immediately provide relief to mothers incarcerated or under community supervision who are eligible to participate. We are working with DOC to determine a realistic timeline to implement the program.
