By Bill Lueders
Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism
One day last October, Sgt. Louise Hackel of the Clark County Sheriff’s Department was summoned to deal with an emergency.
A distraught woman at the central Wisconsin county’s Community Services office was being involuntarily committed for mental health reasons. Hackel, one of four jail workers who arrived on the scene, [...]

In response to a Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism report, Rep. Garey Bies, R-Sister Bay, called a hearing to question Wisconsin Department of Corrections officials about the reliability of GPS monitoring of offenders.

LOSING TRACK
Main story: Lost signals, disconnected lives
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Thirteen offenders told the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism that Wisconsin’s GPS tracking system repeatedly fails, registering false alerts and landing the offenders in jail although they had done nothing wrong. Meanwhile, Gov. Scott Walker is proposing an expansion of nearly 50 percent in the number of [...]

Thirteen offenders told the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism that Wisconsin’s GPS tracking system repeatedly fails, registering false alerts and landing the offenders in jail although they had done nothing wrong. Meanwhile, Gov. Scott Walker is proposing an expansion of nearly 50 percent in the number of offenders monitored by GPS devices.

How can Wisconsin’s electronic monitoring using GPS devices be made more reliable and effective? Suggestions drawn from interviews with experts.

Key findings:
• Wisconsin’s county-run jails are overloaded with people with mental illness — but services are largely inadequate.
• The state Department of Corrections is charged with oversight but does not evaluate the quality of jails’ mental health care.
• For nearly a quarter-century, the Legislature has required the DOC to collect and summarize annual reports on jails’ mental health care, but most jails have not provided the information, and the DOC acknowledges it has not been asking for them.
• One-third of Wisconsin’s jails have been cited for inadequate suicide prevention efforts.

Gov. Jim Doyle and his staff submitted receipts 70 percent of the time in 2007 and 2008 for travel expenses reviewed by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, newly released records show, and not 28 percent of the time as the newspaper reported nine weeks ago.