Category: UW Experts in the News

Restorative justice is a reconciliation method that seeks mediation between offenders and victims when a crime has been committed. The overall goal of restorative justice is to allow all parties–including the community as a whole–to heal from crime. State Senator Lena Taylor (D-Milwaukee) joins us to talk about why she’d like to see restorative justice implemented more broadly in Wisconsin. And Jonathan Scherrer, Director of the Restorative Justice Project at the University of Wisconsin Law School’s Frank J. Remington Center, gives us a broad look at the method.

Quoted: Dennis Dresang, professor emeritus of public affairs and political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said the moves defy his state’s long history of deferring to incoming officials — even those in the opposite party — after elections.

Quoted: UW-Madison Political Science Professor, David Canon said depending if Walker vetoes, signs the bills, or makes changes, it will set the tone at the statehouse for the next four years.

Quoted: “Even though technically a naked-eye comet doesn’t have to be very bright, they’re still relatively unusual,” said Jim Lattis, director of University of Wisconsin Space Place, UW-Madison’s astronomy outreach center.

Quoted: In total, nearly 300,000 union members are either drawing benefits from the Cental States fund or are qualified to do so in the future, Gordon Enderle, an actuary at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Business, said. He added that another 123,000 are qualified for future pensions, but only 62,000 Teamsters are currently contributing to the fund through their employers.

“Everyone who’s in Central States’ Union is affected by it, in my opinion,” Enderle said.

NOTED: Howard Schweber is a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He says Republicans seem to believe that separation of powers refers to parties rather than branches of government.

Quoted: “This clearly is an indication of how polarized politics have become,” University of Wisconsin-Madison political scientist David Canon said. “It’s really not consistent with how we’ve had transfers of power in the past. We should be alarmed at this. I hope it’s not the new normal.”

Noted: “I think there’s no doubt that some of this is going to be contested in court. It’s possible still that Gov. Walker could veto parts of this,” said David Canon, a professor of political science at University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Quoted: In order to better understand both the radical nature of the legislature’s actions and what it will mean for the future of democracy in Wisconsin, Salon spoke by email with Michael Wagner, an associate professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who specializes in “research, teaching, and service are animated by the question, ‘how well does democracy work?’”

Quoted: I worry that because the problems are so big, we will throw up our metaphorical hands and stop trying.

—Jenny Saffran, language acquisition expert and professor of psychology at the University of Wisconsin, Madison

Sending troops into Gaza probably weakens support for the party in office (Netanyahu’s Likud), providing the more hawkish coalition members an advantage in future elections by further polarizing the Israeli electorate.

–Chagai M. Weiss is a PhD candidate in the political science department at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.

Quoted: Moynihan, who taught at the University of Wisconsin at Madison from 2005 until earlier this year, notes that Evers would also lose power historically reserved by Wisconsin governors to seek waivers from federal programs under the GOP proposal, something Republicans have long claimed is essential for federalism to flourish.

Noted: At the same time, this procedure exposed the twins to risks that we can’t fully catalog and don’t currently understand. As University of Wisconsin bioethicist Alta Charo said, “Having listened to Dr. He, I can only conclude that this was misguided, premature, unnecessary, and largely useless.”

Noted: “This is a great thing for Aurora to do,” said Timothy Smeeding, a professor of public affairs and economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Noted: Dr. Marcia Slattery, from UW Health, talks about how to balance out your child’s holiday gifts.

Quoted: But sexual abuse experts said what the wrestlers describe is a form of sexual harassment and stalking. “You don’t need to touch somebody to hurt them,” said University of Wisconsin psychology professor Ryan McKinley, a member of the Society for the Psychological Study of Men and Masculinity. “There may not have been any contact, but clearly people on the receiving end saw its impact.”