'Absolutely chilling': Bill to strip Wisconsin inmates of parental rights draws forceful rebuke

The Republican-sponsored legislation allows for courts to use a person’s incarceration status or likelihood of being behind bars in proceedings seeking to terminate a person’s parental rights.

Critics, which include the Department of Children and Families, the Ho-Chunk Nation and state social workers, say the bill is a departure from long-established rules for taking away parental rights that would deepen racial disparities in the criminal justice system.

In response to those critiques, sponsors amended the bill last month outlining the types of crimes and other conditions that would trigger eligibility for losing parental rights. Currently, incarceration status is one of many factors courts weigh in determining whether to strip someone of parental rights.

“This is kind of a road map for the courts. Right now they don’t have that,” Sen. Duey Stroebel, R-Saukville, a co-sponsor of the bill (SB 595), said at a hearing on the proposed amendment Wednesday.

Under the amendment, only those who meet all of the following requirements would be eligible to lose parental rights:

• The child is 14 years old or younger at the time a petition to terminate parental rights is filed.
• The parent has “failed to maintain a parental relationship with the child.”
• There is no appeal pending for the parent’s conviction.
• The person has been convicted of certain crimes against children or “crimes against life and bodily security,” which includes offenses ranging from homicide and sexual assault to witness intimidation and violating court orders.
• The person will be incarcerated for more than 50% of the child’s first 18 years.

The amendment did nothing to assuage critics’ opposition to the bill.

DCF, which has lobbied against the bill, has said it could violate children’s rights to familial association. The agency also calls the bill “redundant” since incarceration is already a factor weighed by authorities in parental rights proceedings, along with abandonment, abuse, incest and failure to assume parental responsibility.

“The widespread impact of this could be absolutely chilling,” said Wendy Henderson, an administrator for DCF’s Division of Safety and Permanence.

The bill’s language on incarcerated parents maintaining a relationship with the child doesn’t consider factors beyond an inmate’s control, especially with prison visitation being limited by the pandemic, Henderson noted.

“To be able to make that demonstration of parental responsibility becomes very very difficult for an incarcerated parent,” Henderson said.

Another co-sponsor of the bill, Rep. Barbara Dittrich, R-Ocomomowoc, said the amended legislation was introduced after talks with groups like the State Bar of Wisconsin, which supports the measure.

“The point is not to break up families,” Dittrich said in an interview. “If we have a parent that’s incarcerated and has no interest in the child, and the child’s in a situation that needs permanency, we want the child to have that hope of stability and permanency in a stable home.”

Parents in prison

Of the nearly 20,000 people in the Wisconsin prison system, 47% of them have dependents, according to the state Department of Corrections.

With Black, Latino and indigenous people disproportionately in Wisconsin prisons, they, too, would disproportionately be affected by the new guidelines for ending parental rights, said Amanda Merkwae, a legislative adviser for DCF.

“When you are allowing (termination of parental rights) based on the grounds of incarceration when there might not be other abuse or neglect that may have occurred with that particular parent, it unnecessarily severs the connection between a child and their family, and exacerbates the disproportionality that exists in both the criminal, legal system and child welfare system,” Merkwae said at Wednesday’s hearing.

Plenty of programs already exist in Wisconsin prisons aimed at boosting parenting skills for inmates and providing camps for the children of inmates, said Wendy Volz Daniels, a social worker who has worked with children and families in parental rights cases.

“What we need is providing more services to these children who aren’t really visible,” Daniels said. “We need to have better public policy that enhances the capacity of developing this relationship further and helping incarcerated folks to have all the tools at their disposal.”

The Department of Corrections did not respond to a request for comment and has not registered a stance on the legislation.

Tribal opposition

Representatives of the Ho-Chunk Nation condemned the legislation, saying it could increase the likelihood of native children being taken from their parents and placed with white families.

Such placement can produce mental health problems for children, including increased risk for depression, addiction and suicide, said Scott Seifert, the attorney general for the Ho-Chunk Nation.

“These children grow up looking in the mirror and knowing in their hearts there is something different about them,” Seifert said. “Without their tribal community there to support them as they go through life, they are simply going through the motions.”

The tribe has been joined in opposition to the legislation by the Wisconsin Council of Churches, the American Civil Liberties Union and the League of Women Voters.

Other bills regarding parental rights are under consideration by the legislature. One bill sponsored by Dittrich (AB 626), could put a child in protective services or strip parental rights if the child is prenatally exposed to drugs or alcohol and the parent is not seeking treatment for their addiction.