Commentary

COMMENTARY: Wisconsin Must Shift Youth Justice Policy to Promote Transformative Change

MILWAUKEE COURIER — As Wisconsin looks to establish a new correctional system for youth, it is incumbent upon us to act with great urgency to respond to the immediate crisis at Lincoln Hills and Copper Lake Schools. We must take deliberate action to promote youth justice system reforms that are most effective, safe, sustainable and support proper care and treatment of our youth.

Published

6 years ago

May 23, 2019

Oakland Post

By Milwaukee Courier

As Wisconsin looks to establish a new correctional system for youth, it is incumbent upon us to act with great urgency to respond to the immediate crisis at Lincoln Hills and Copper Lake Schools. We must take deliberate action to promote youth justice system reforms that are most effective, safe, sustainable and support proper care and treatment of our youth.

While Act 185 has many merits, it doesn’t go far enough. Act 185, which this administration inherited, only marginally improves the status quo while a paradigm shift is needed. Instead of pushing for transformational change, it aims to improve conditions of confinement without reducing the number of youth Wisconsin places in locked custody or the state’s carceral footprint.

In their 2011 publication, No Place for Kids: The Case for Reducing Juvenile Incarceration, the Annie E. Casey Foundation outlined six failings of America’s juvenile corrections facilities. It stated that juvenile corrections facilities are dangerous, ineffective, unnecessary, obsolete, wasteful and inadequate. Given the poor outcomes of Lincoln Hills and Copper Lake, it would be fair to similarly categorize Wisconsin’s juvenile corrections facilities by these pitfalls.

Lincoln Hills School (LHS)

In response to these failings, the Casey Foundation identified six priorities including limiting the eligibility for correctional placements, investing in promising non-residential alternatives, changing the financial incentives, adopting best practice reforms for managing youth offenders, replacing large institutions with small, treatment-oriented facilities, and using data to hold systems accountable. The State of Missouri and Wayne County, Michigan (Detroit) are examples of jurisdictions who used these strategies to eliminate state juvenile correctional facilities and realize remarkable reductions of youth in secure care facilities.

Reports by the Center for Children’s Law and Policy and Columbia University Justice Lab have outlined the successes of the Close to Home initiative implemented in New York City. Since 2011, the model successfully reduced the need for secure care for youth and lowered youth crime rates when compared to the rest of New York State. Other jurisdictions like Philadelphia and Houston are looking to learn from the Close to Home model, as they respond to the failures of their large correctional facilities. The success of models like Close to Home have now prompted over 50 justice system leaders to sign a statement calling for the closure of all youth prisons and placing these youth at home with rigorous community programming, or in small, home-like facilities close to the youth’s families.

If revisions to the DOC 347 were made, Milwaukee County could develop smaller, more home-like secure settings for the majority of youth at Lincoln Hills and Copper Lake and renovate two pods in the Detention Center to serve the youth in need of additional internal structure and security. Only a small number of the youth committed to restrictive custodial care actually require the type of Wisconsin Must Shift Youth Justice Policy to Promote Transformative Change internal security available within a detention center or correctional facility. We believe that such a plan could result in significant savings and reduce the overall institutional footprint, while providing a more trauma-informed and engaging treatment environment for most youth.

Wisconsin has the second highest rate of disparity in confinement between white and black youth in the nation. Black youth are 15 times more likely than white youth to be confined in our state. This is not only true in Milwaukee. It is true across our state. We cannot incarcerate our way out the problems our youth are facing. We must find a better way, and our best opportunity is now.

It is critical to strengthen the network of providers, mentors, coaches, employers, teachers, and advocates who look like and have similar life experiences as our youth. Programs like Running Rebels help young people be successful and lead healthy, prosocial lives. However, it is imperative that we continue to expand the capacity for mentors with lived experience, vocational training, alternative educational, recreational resources and socioeconomic advancement opportunities for underserved youth and families in Milwaukee.

The history of juvenile prison failures spanning decades and across over 30 states, territories, and the District of Columbia, coupled with our own tragic and troubling experiences within Lincoln Hills and Copper Lake Schools more than justify the call for the closing of all youth prisons. To that end, the state should eliminate “Type I” facilities and build regional Secure Residential programs. If we aspire to establish a new, therapeutic treatment culture in our youth justice system, we must understand that words matter. We must do everything within our power to assure that our history of abusive institutions does not repeat itself and we must do so at this critical juncture.

We believe that these proposed changes will position our state to continue to pursue transformative improvements. It is only through this pursuit that we can establish an effective, sustainable and fiscally responsible youth justice system. Wisconsin should not waste this tremendous opportunity to redefine who we are as a state when it comes to youth justice.

This article originally appeared in the Milwaukee Courier.

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Arts and Culture

BOOK REVIEW: Love, Rita: An American Story of Sisterhood, Joy, Loss, and Legacy

When Bridgett M. Davis was in college, her sister Rita was diagnosed with lupus, a disease of the immune system that often left her constantly tired and sore. Davis was a bit unfazed, but sympathetic to Rita’s suffering and also annoyed that the disease sometimes came between them. By that time, they needed one another more than ever.

Published

6 hours ago

April 28, 2025

Oakland Post

Love Rita Book Cover. Courtesy of Harper.

By Terri Schlichenmeyer

Author: Bridgett M. Davis, c.2025, Harper, $29.99, 367 Pages

Take care.

Do it because you want to stay well, upright, and away from illness. Eat right, swallow your vitamins and hydrate, keep good habits and hygiene, and cross your fingers. Take care as much as you can because, as in the new book, “Love, Rita” by Bridgett M. Davis, your well-being is sometimes out of your hands.

It was a family story told often: when Davis was born, her sister, Rita, then four years old, stormed up to her crying newborn sibling and said, ‘Shut your … mouth!’

Rita, says Davis, didn’t want a little sister then. She already had two big sisters and a neighbor who was somewhat of a “sister,” and this baby was an irritation. As Davis grew, the feeling was mutual, although she always knew that Rita loved her.

Over the years, the sisters tried many times not to fight — on their own and at the urging of their mother — and though division was ever present, it eased when Rita went to college. Davis was still in high school then, and she admired her big sister.

She eagerly devoured frequent letters sent to her in the mail, signed, “Love, Rita.”

When Davis was in college herself, Rita was diagnosed with lupus, a disease of the immune system that often left her constantly tired and sore. Davis was a bit unfazed, but sympathetic to Rita’s suffering and also annoyed that the disease sometimes came between them. By that time, they needed one another more than ever.

First, they lost their father. Drugs then invaded the family and addiction stole two siblings. A sister and a young nephew were murdered in a domestic violence incident. Their mother was devastated; Rita’s lupus was an “added weight of her sorrow.”

After their mother died of colon cancer, Rita’s lupus took a turn for the worse.

“Did she even stand a chance?” Davis wrote in her journal.

“It just didn’t seem possible that she, someone so full of life, could die.”

Let’s start here: once you get past the prologue in “Love, Rita,” you may lose interest. Maybe.

Most of the stories that author Bridgett M. Davis shares are mildly interesting, nothing rare, mostly commonplace tales of growing up in the 1960s and ’70s with a sibling. There are a lot of these kinds of stories, and they tend to generally melt together. After about fifty pages of them, you might start to think about putting the book aside.

But don’t. Not quite yet.

In between those everyday tales, Davis occasionally writes about being an ailing Black woman in America, the incorrect assumptions made by doctors, the history of medical treatment for Black people (women in particular), attitudes, and mythologies. Those passages are now and then, interspersed, but worth scanning for.

This book is perhaps best for anyone with the patience for a slow-paced memoir, or anyone who loves a Black woman who’s ill or might be ill someday. If that’s you and you can read between the lines, then “Love, Rita” is a book to take in carefully.

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Activism

Faces Around the Bay: Author Karen Lewis Took the ‘Detour to Straight Street’

“My life has been a roller-coaster with an unlimited ride wristband! I was raised in Berkeley during the time of Ron Dellums, the Black Panthers, and People’s Park. I was a Hippie kid, my Auntie cut off all our hair so we could wear the natural styles like her and Angela Davis.

Published

6 hours ago

April 28, 2025

Oakland Post

Karen Lewis. Courtesy photo.

By Barbara Fluhrer

I met Karen Lewis on a park bench in Berkeley. She wrote her story on the spot.

I got married young, then ended up getting divorced, raising two boys into men. After my divorce, I had a stroke that left me blind and paralyzed. I was homeless, lost in a fog with blurred vision.

Jesus healed me! I now have two beautiful grandkids. At 61, this age and this stage, I am finally free indeed. Our Lord Jesus Christ saved my soul. I now know how to be still. I lay at his feet. I surrender and just rest. My life and every step on my path have already been ordered. So, I have learned in this life…it’s nice to be nice. No stressing, just blessings. Pray for the best and deal with the rest.

Nobody is perfect, so forgive quickly and love easily!”

Lewis’ book “Detour to Straight Street” is available on Amazon.

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Activism

AI Is Reshaping Black Healthcare: Promise, Peril, and the Push for Improved Results in California

Black Californians experience some of the worst health outcomes in the state due to systemic inequities, limited healthcare access, and exclusion from medical research. 16.7% of Black adults report fair or poor health, versus 11.5% of Whites. Black adults have the highest death rates from prostate, breast, colorectal, and lung cancer. Statewide, diabetes affects 13.6% of Black adults versus 9.1% of Whites, and 27% of Black adults over 65 have heart disease, compared to 22% of Whites. Life expectancy for Black Californians is about five years shorter than the state average.

Published

14 hours ago

April 27, 2025

Oakland Post

(Left to right:) Dr. Akilah Weber Pierson. CBM file photo. Dr. Timnit Gebru is DAIR’s founder and executive director. Photo courtesy of Dr. Gebru. Judy Wawira Gichoya, MD, MS, is an associate professor in the Department of Radiology and Imaging Sciences at Emory University School of Medicine. Dr. Gichoya serves as co-director in leading the Healthcare AI Innovation and Translational Informatics (HITI) Lab. Trained as both an informatician and an interventional radiologist, Dr. Gichoya’s work is centered around using data science to study health equity. Photo provided by the Emory University Winship Cancer Institute.

Joe W. Bowers Jr.
California Black Media

Artificial intelligence (AI) is changing how Californians receive medical care – diagnosing diseases, predicting patient needs, streamlining treatments, and even generating medical notes for doctors.

While AI holds promise, it also poses risks, particularly for Black patients. It can provide faster diagnoses and expand access to care, but it may also misdiagnose conditions, delay treatment, or overlook patient’s critical needs. AI’s impact on Black patients depends on how biases in medical data and algorithms are addressed in its development.

“As we progress toward a society with increased use of AI technology, it is critical that the biases and stereotypes that Black Americans have faced are not perpetuated in our future innovations,” said Dr. Akilah Weber Pierson (D – San Diego), a physician and state senator spearheading legislative efforts to address AI bias in healthcare.

Why AI Matters for Black Californians

Benefits and Risks of AI in Healthcare

AI processes vast amounts of medical data using computer algorithms designed to identify patient health patterns, helping doctors to diagnose diseases, recommend treatment, and increase patient care efficiency. By analyzing scans, lab results, and patient history, AI can detect diseases

earlier, giving it the potential to improve care for Black patients, who face higher risks of prostate cancer, diabetes, heart disease and hypertension.

Dr. Judy Gichoya, an Interventional radiologist at the Emory University Winship Cancer Institute and AI researcher at Emory’s Healthcare AI Innovation and Translational Informatics (HITI) Lab, sees AI as a tool with great potential but cautions that its effectiveness depends on the diversity of the data it is trained on. She says, “Without diverse datasets, AI could overlook critical signs of diseases, especially in underrepresented populations like Black patients.”

Dr. Timnit Gebru, a computer scientist and AI ethics expert, is the founder and Executive Director of DAIR (Distributed AI Research Institute) in Oakland. She has extensively studied bias in AI systems and their impact on marginalized groups.

Gebru acknowledges that AI has the potential to improve healthcare by enhancing efficiency and expanding access to medical resources. But, like Gichoya she strongly stresses that for AI to be effective and equitable it needs to be subject to rigorous oversight.

AI is already helping doctors personalize cancer treatment by identifying biomarkers and genetic mutations. UCSF and Stanford Health use AI to analyze tumor DNA to match patients with the most effective chemotherapy or immunotherapy.

In diabetes care, AI predicts blood sugar fluctuations, helping doctors adjust treatment. It helps radiologists in early disease detection and identifies sepsis sooner, reducing hospital deaths. In cardiology, AI detects early signs of heart disease, spotting plaque buildup or abnormal heart rhythms before symptoms appear. It also helps predict strokes by analyzing brain scans to determine risk and guide intervention.

Kaiser Permanente uses AI scribes to reduce paperwork and improve patient interactions. Covered California has partnered with Google

Cloud to use AI to streamline document verification and eligibility decisions.

Despite these advancements, AI systems trained on biased medical data can perpetuate inequities for Black patients.

Gebru explains, “If AI learns from historically discriminatory medical decisions—such as undertreating Black patients—it will scale those biases.”

A notable example is in dermatology, where AI frequently misdiagnoses conditions in Black patients because most training datasets are based on lighter-skinned individuals. “Melanoma looks very different on darker skin,” Gebru notes. “It’s not just darker—it often appears differently, like under toenails, a pattern AI trained mostly on lighter skin won’t detect.”

Another risk of AI in healthcare is automation bias, where healthcare providers over-rely on AI, even when it contradicts medical expertise. “Doctors who would have prescribed medications accurately without AI sometimes make mistakes while using automated tools because they over-trust these systems,” Gebru adds.

AI-driven health insurance claim denials are a growing concern. UnitedHealthcare faces a class-action lawsuit for allegedly using an unregulated AI algorithm to deny rehabilitation coverage to elderly and disabled patients.

Beyond bias, AI also poses an environmental threat. AI systems require enormous amounts of energy for computing and massive amounts of water to cool data centers, which exacerbates climate change, an issue that already disproportionately impacts Black communities.

Trump Administration and DEI Impact

The Trump administration’s efforts to dismantle Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) threatens funding for AI bias research in healthcare.

Less federal support could stall progress in making AI systems fairer and more accurate, increasing discrimination risks for Black patients.

California’s Legislative and Regulatory Response

Recognizing AI’s risks in healthcare, California lawmakers and state officials are implementing regulations. Weber Pierson introduced Senate Bill (SB) 503 to ensure that AI algorithms used in healthcare are tested for racial bias before implementation.

“We’ve already seen how biased medical devices like pulse oximeters can fail Black patients,” Weber Pierson explains. “If algorithms used in patient care aren’t inclusive, they’re not going to accurately serve melanated individuals.”

At a press conference introducing SB 503, Weber Pierson stressed that AI must be held accountable. “This bill focuses on ensuring that software used as an accessory to healthcare staff delivers sound, nondiscriminatory decisions that promote equitable outcomes.”

Other legislative efforts include Senate Bill (SB) 1120, by Sen. Josh Becker (D-Menlo Park), which stops insurance companies from using AI alone to deny or delay care and Assembly Bill (AB) 3030, by Assemblymember Lisa Calderon (D-Whittier), which requires healthcare providers to inform patients when AI is used in their care.

Attorney General Rob Bonta has issued a legal advisory barring AI from unfairly denying healthcare claims, falsifying records, or restricting access to care based on medical history. Gov. Gavin Newsom’s 2023 executive order directs state agencies to assess AI’s impact and establish consumer protections, particularly in healthcare.

Actions Black Patients and Families Can Take

As AI becomes more common in healthcare, Black Californians can ensure fair treatment by asking if AI is used, seeking second opinions, and supporting groups addressing algorithmic bias.

They can:

Ask their healthcare providers whether AI played a role in their diagnosis or treatment.
Request second opinions if an AI-generated diagnosis seems questionable.
Advocate for AI policies and legislation promoting fairness and accountability. · Engage with community health organizations like the California Black Health Network (CBHN) that is engaged in ensuring AI is developed in ways to improve health outcomes for Black patients.

Rhonda Smith, CBHN’s executive director, says bias in medical algorithms must be eliminated. “There should never be any race-based adjustment in delivering patient care,” she said.

CBHN supports inclusive research and legislation like SB 503 to ensure AI promotes equity.

Ensuring AI Benefits All Communities

As a legislator, Weber Pierson is pushing for stronger safeguards to ensure AI serves all patients equitably. She says, “Innovation and technology are good, but new challenges arise if we don’t move in a direction inclusive and thoughtful of all people who utilize the healthcare space.”

AI has the potential to revolutionize healthcare, but experts warn it must be developed and regulated with transparency, accountability, and fairness – ensuring it reduces rather than worsens, racial health disparities.