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Childhood trauma often heralds incarceration. Now, we’re giving the worst cases a fresh look.

Noted: In 2019, the Milwaukee County District Attorney’s Office partnered with the Legal Aid Society of Milwaukee — one of the oldest public-interest law firms in the nation — for a project called the Public Interest Justice Initiative. They reviewed the cases of 50 people sentenced to life in prison for crimes committed when they were children to determine eligibility for early release and parole.

The initiative was launched after the Remington Center at the University of Wisconsin Law School found that more than half the 128 inmates serving life sentences for juvenile offenses were from Milwaukee County. The idea is to see if adjustments should be made, said District Attorney John Chisholm.