Community advocate and counselor Aaron Hicks addressed University of Wisconsin students Tuesday, discussing the need for prison reform and reentry assistance for the formerly incarcerated.
Hicks was invited to address students by the UW Students Against Mass Incarceration, a new student organization at UW.
“We are so happy to host Aaron for this event,” SAMI President Drew Stacey said. “As a new club getting our feet off the ground, we would love to educate more people in the Madison area about mass incarceration, and we’re looking to take steps forward and hopefully address the issue.”
Hicks has lived the experience of incarceration, founding Wisconsin-based nonprofit The Voices of Power with fellow community advocate Frank Davis, whom he met when he was in prison, according to Hicks.
Hicks said that the goal of the penal system in the U.S. is to incarcerate people of color at disproportionate rates compared to non-people of color.
Wisconsin imprisons Black residents at a higher rate than any other state in the country, making up 42% of the Wisconsin prison population but just 6% of the state’s population, according to a report by The Sentencing Project.
This disparity in the prison system poses questions about what incarceration does to provide safety to citizens within a community, according to Hicks.
“When there’s people’s rhetoric about, we’re trying to protect the community, nobody poses the question, ‘How?’” Hicks said. “How are you actually trying to protect the community? Because it seems as if you are doing more damage than actually helping.”
Hicks served 12 years in a medium security prison, from 1998 to 2010. His daughter, who shares his name, was 3-weeks-old when he went into prison and 13-years-old when he returned. Hicks spent the majority of his time incarcerated reading and also got his High School Equivalency Diploma while in prison, taking vocational classes.
Wisconsin has a high rate of recidivism, where formerly incarcerated people return to prison after their release, according to the World Population Review. In 2024, 31.8% of incarcerated individuals became re-incarcerated within three years after their release, according to data from World Population Review.
“It’s about protecting the community, but if that was really the case, then one, why is recidivism the way that it is … [and] … the second part, why is it so difficult for people to get the programming and the treatment that they actually need inside of it?” Hicks said. “The truth of the matter is, they’re not.”
Hicks has worked as a co-facilitator of the UW Community Advisory Board and co-leader of re-entry peer support group Build Up. With The Voices of Power, Hicks and his team help those impacted by the criminal legal system find their own personal voice, according to Hicks.
When it comes to taking part in advocacy efforts related to incarceration reforms, Hicks discussed the importance of connecting locally to best meet the needs of those affected.
“I know that not everybody will have to go into a prison, but a lot of us are very much incarcerated,” Hicks said. “So in order to break free, I believe that you can’t heal what you won’t reveal,” Hicks said.
