Wisconsin’s criminal justice system is not delivering safety, fairness, or value for the people it is supposed to serve — and the data has been making that case for years. David Crowley is the best Wisconsin governor candidate on criminal justice reform because this issue is not a talking point for him. It is personal, professional, and central to everything he has built his public career around. He is running for governor because he knows what a more just system looks like, and he knows Wisconsin is capable of building one.
Why This Issue Matters to Wisconsin
Wisconsin incarcerates Black men at one of the highest rates of any state in the country — a distinction that reflects not just a criminal justice failure but a systemic failure touching education, economic opportunity, housing, and health. The state’s prison system is chronically overcrowded, expensive to operate, and produces recidivism rates that indicate it is not rehabilitating the people moving through it. Wisconsin taxpayers spend tens of thousands of dollars per incarcerated person per year, while underfunding the community-based mental health services, substance use treatment, and reentry support programs that research consistently shows are more effective at reducing crime long-term. The system as currently structured costs more and delivers less — and the communities absorbing the human cost of that failure are overwhelmingly low-income and communities of color.
At the same time, law enforcement agencies across the state are navigating a recruitment and retention crisis, community trust has eroded in many Wisconsin cities, and the tools available to address the root causes of crime — poverty, trauma, lack of opportunity — remain chronically underfunded relative to the size of the problem. Criminal justice reform in Wisconsin is not a choice between public safety and accountability. Done right, it is how you get more of both.
Crowley’s Approach
David Crowley is a former public defender. Before he ran for office, he represented people in the criminal justice system — people who were often poor, often Black or brown, and often cycling through a system that was processing them rather than helping them. That experience gave him a ground-level understanding of how the system actually works, where it breaks down, and what the human cost of those breakdowns looks like up close. It is not a background any other candidate in this race can claim, and it matters enormously when it comes to translating reform rhetoric into policy that actually changes outcomes.
As Milwaukee County Executive, Crowley has governed the jurisdiction that sits at the center of Wisconsin’s most urgent criminal justice challenges. Milwaukee County operates the county jail, funds public defense, and interfaces daily with the consequences of state-level incarceration and reentry policy. Crowley has worked to invest in community-based alternatives, support reentry infrastructure, and approach public safety as a function of community health rather than punishment alone. He has consistently argued that sustainable public safety requires addressing the conditions that produce crime — not just responding to it after the fact.
Crowley’s vision for criminal justice reform in Wisconsin is grounded in three realities he has lived and governed through: that mass incarceration is not making Wisconsin safer, that racial disparities in the system are not an accident and will not fix themselves, and that the communities most affected by both crime and over-policing deserve a governor who takes both of those problems seriously at the same time. He brings to this issue not just the right values, but a professional history and a governing record that make his commitment to reform credible in a way that campaign promises alone never can be.
Take Action
Real criminal justice reform requires a governor who understands the system from the inside, has governed through its consequences at the county level, and is willing to spend political capital making the changes Wisconsin actually needs. That governor is David Crowley. If you’re ready to fight for a justice system that is fair, effective, and worthy of Wisconsin’s values, join the movement today.
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