Sheriff Ball Holds Controlled Town Hall Following Jail Audit

Milwaukee County Jail. Photo by Jeramey Jannene.

Milwaukee County Sheriff Denita Ball held a town hall Thursday in response to the results of the shocking jail audit released last November.

Ball brought her command staff with her to the town hall Thursday, and the top MCSO brass used a good portion of the event to make the case that the agency is working on improving conditions in the jail. That included some facility improvements, work on a newly clarified use of force policy and additional suicide and mental health-related training. The sheriff and her command staff did not take questions directly, instead they answered written questions read out by Ken Harris, host of the radio program The Truth on 101.7 and a former Milwaukee police officer.

“We wanted to ensure that we had an opportunity for the citizens to come and talk about the jail audit that was issued in October of 2024, and it was an opportunity to talk about the progress that we made,” Ball told media after the town hall.

The structure wasn’t widely embraced, including by a key county supervisor.

Sup. Justin Bielinski, who chairs the county boards Committee on Judiciary, Law Enforcement and General Services, said he was frustrated with how “structured” the event was and that the agency did not discuss “the staffing and culture issues” that the supervisor thinks contributed to the string of deaths in the jail.

The County Board commissioned the audit following six deaths that occurred in the jail or MCSO custody in recent years. Activists and family members have also repeatedly called for an audit and greater transparency from the jail.

The audit, conducted by Texas-based Creative Corrections LLC, spotlighted a number of problems in the Milwaukee County Jail, including a lack of training. One of the primary reasons for the audit was looking into the jail’s suicide policies. The report described the “deeply alarming” practice of handcuffing suicidal occupants to benches in the booking room for hours at a time, overusing suicide watch, inadequate suicide prevention training and deficient suicide watch facilities.

In response to the concern over the policy of restraining suicidal inmates to booking room benches, the MCSO is planning to retrofit an existing booking room with individual suicide watch cells, said Jail Commander Joshua Briggs. The cells would allow the agency to end the practice of handcuffing suicidal occupants to benches in the booking room, sometimes for hours at a time. The sheriff’s office plans to request funding for the project during the annual budget cycle later this year.

A spokesperson for the sheriff’s office told Urban Milwaukee after the meeting that the proposed changes to the booking room would entail the construction of full-sized suicide watch cells, as opposed to the small, portable “containment cells” suggested by Creative Corrections.

Some of the issues residents submitted questions on included how the MCSO responds to staff burnout, what the agency’s policy for immigration detainer requests is (they don’t honor them), whether inmates can vote (they can), and whether the MCSO will implement an expedited video release policy for critical incidents similar to one maintained by the City of Milwaukee (it won’t).

Ball said she does not intend to implement a video release policy “similar” to the city’s, which makes video footage available to next of kin within 48 hours, and to the public within 15 days. However, she indicated the office may develop a policy for video release and said it is currently collecting data.

Some in attendance criticized the format, including members of the Milwaukee Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, arguing that a dialogue between the community and the MCSO was not actually occurring.

The meeting was set up to answer as many questions as possible, and to avoid extensive back and forth with members of the public, Ball said.

“I hope it was an opportunity for [the public] to express themselves,” Ball said.

“I think the community members who most wanted the audit are not going to be satisfied by something like this,” said Bielinski.

The supervisor also noted that much of what the MCSO officials discussed related to the challenges posed by the facilities, and the improvements they plan to add to their annual budget request.

The audit did raise a number of concerns about the jail’s facilities. One example is the suicide watch cells that are so dirty and damaged they prevent constant observation.

“We’re going to need resources, and as a result, we will be requesting those resources,” Ball said. “It’s going to cost a lot of money.”