Wisconsin Watch Media Partners Center (https://partners.wisconsinwatch.org/tag/disability-rights-wisconsin/)
It’s part of a national trend. But parents and guardians of patients at Central Wisconsin Center, one of the state’s facilities for the developmentally disabled, are worried that the state’s no-new-admissions policy could endanger people who could benefit from the centers’ services. Now a couple have gone to court to keep their child at the center.
Gov. Scott Walker is proposing sweeping changes to the state’s long-term care programs for the elderly and disabled, but the lack of detail has advocates concerned.
Part 1: The Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism has identified 40 allegations of physical or psychological abuse by correctional officers against inmates in Waupun’s segregation unit since 2011. The allegations, involving 33 inmates, allege extreme mistreatment, including being beaten and stomped on while handcuffed behind their backs.
After reversing his original position, Gov. Scott Walker on Friday signed legislation to request more federal money to help unemployed people with disabilities find jobs faster.
Despite the wake-up call sounded nationwide by recent mass shootings, huge gaps remain in how Wisconsin treats people with mental illnesses who run afoul of the law. State and county officials blame a shortage of psychiatrists, growing demand for services and high medication costs.
Thousands of people with disabilities must wait for months to access state employment services, although the Division of Vocational Rehabilitation has not requested the full amount of federal funds available to it for the past three years, the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism has found.
Critics of school choice, and a pending federal lawsuit, charge that students with disabilities are being underserved by publicly funded vouchers meant to give low-income students in Milwaukee and Racine the chance to have a private education.