MADISON — Joint Legislative Audit Co-Chairs Senator Eric Wimberger (R-Green Bay) and Representative Robert Wittke (R-Racine) released the following statement in response to the April 20th public hearing on the Department of Corrections (DOC) Community Corrections Program.
“We remain concerned that the DOC has implemented a far-reaching program, whose policies have the force of law, without following the statutorily-required rulemaking process. Victims, communities and stakeholders deserve transparency from the department on how they have chosen to implement this program, and they deserve to have confidence DOC’s mechanisms have been thoroughly vetted and are in their best interest.
“Additionally, the committee is still waiting to hear which of the six Legislative Audit Bureau recommendations the department does not agree with and why. If the DOC was ready to tell us those recommendations at the hearing last week, why have they not been able to produce this list yet?”
In January of 2022, the JLAC voted to authorize an audit to evaluate the community corrections program administered by the Department of Corrections. The audit, released last month, outlined 27 recommendations that would ensure the department is following their own policies relating to timely completion of offender risk assessments and investigations, fulfilling all of its statutorily-required obligations and addressing considerable programmatic variances across the state.
