Capitol Comments

With the number of COVID-19 cases increasing, and a rise in deaths from the disease, “social distancing” has become a familiar term and way of life across the country. But how is social distancing possible for people whose days are spent in a 6-by-8-foot cell with another person? How can state and local governments maintain public safety while protecting inmates? How can they prevent outbreaks from starting in correctional facilities, and then spreading to the wider community?

These are some of the questions that have vexed criminal justice administrators, inmates, staff and family members for months. 

Screening mammograms are used to check for breast cancer in women who have not yet shown any signs or symptoms of the disease. Diagnostic mammograms, on the other hand, are used when additional images are needed after the screening mammogram discovers possible indicators of breast cancer.

These indicators include lumps and dense breast tissue; the latter is an important indicator because women with extremely dense breasts are four to six times more likely to develop cancer than women with fatty breasts, according to Densebreast-info, Inc., an online educational resource. Additionally, it is often hard to detect cancer via routine screening mammograms in higher-density breasts, thus necessitating further tests.

Beyond more in-depth X-ray diagnostic mammograms, other detection tests include ultrasounds (sonograms) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRIs). Since 2010, under the Affordable Care Act, insurance providers must cover screening mammograms once a year for women ages 40 to 74 with average risk for breast cancer, and once every two years for all other women. However, insurance providers are not required to cover diagnostic tests under federal law.

After nine months of extensive, unprecedented analysis of Michigan's county jail populations, a specially formed task force has delivered 18 recommendations to the Legislature designed to improve state policies and curb rising jail incarceration rates.

The bipartisan task force's work reflects concerns in Michigan about the impact of a growing jail population, which has occurred even amid big drops in the state's total crime rate (see line graph). 

A new working group in Iowa will look for ways to reduce recidivism among former offenders and eliminate racial bias from the state’s criminal justice system.

Gov. Kim Reynolds asked the group, chaired by Lt. Gov. Adam Gregg — a former state public defender — to deliver recommendations by December, to inform several proposals she will submit to legislators when they reconvene in January.

The racial disparity in Iowa’s criminal justice system is indicated by Bureau of Justice Statistics and census data from 2017 — black Iowans are incarcerated at a rate 9.5 times higher than white Iowans, which is tied with Nebraska for the second highest rate in the Midwest. Both states trail Wisconsin (11.7), and are just ahead of Minnesota (9.2) and Illinois (8.2).

Wisconsin remains on a path to dramatically overhaul its juvenile justice system, but to get to the finish line, the state may need to find more money than originally expected.

AB 953, a bipartisan bill passed in 2018, aims to keep most young offenders in smaller, regional facilities, rather than locked up in a larger, faraway youth prison in northern Wisconsin. That goal aligns with research on how to best rehabilitate young people, says Mary Jo Meyers, director of the Milwaukee County Department of Health and Human Services.