Here & Now

Village President Jim Rafter on Prison Conditions and Safety

Frederica Freyberg:
Shut it down. That’s what the village of Allouez is saying about the maximum-security Green Bay Correctional Institution. The more than 100-year-old prison is more than 200 inmates over capacity and had been on extended lockdown due to staff shortages. The crumbling condition of the facility is described as deplorable. Village President Jim Rafter says the time is now with the search on for a new corrections secretary, to deal with the closure. He says, Anything short of that step would be nothing more than rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. He joins us now. Thanks very much for being here.

Jim Rafter:
Thanks for having me, Frederica.

Frederica Freyberg:
So why close the prison altogether rather than fix it?

Jim Rafter:
Great question. First of all, it’s 125 years old and in — there have been two studies in the corrections system, specifically GBCI. In 2009, a Mead & Hunt study went through the facility and recommended its closure because it needed hundreds of millions of dollars in upgrades just to get up to code. It’s surely not designed by today’s standards for prison to help with reform and to provide the services and programs needed to help these folks get back onto the street. In 2020 — in 2018, the state commissioned another study and that was by BWBR. It was published in 2020. It said the exact same thing except there was a lot more money needed because of the dollars.

Frederica Freyberg:
So describe what you know conditions to be like inside because of the nature of this prison and its age.

Jim Rafter:
Well, according to the design — well, with the design, today, you’re supposed to have sunlight. You’re supposed to be able to live in pods where the — those who are incarcerated can get to the outside to get to school, get to the library, and live more in a communal environment versus a cell. The cells at GBCI — the prison was designed for approximately 750 inmates and today it houses almost a thousand. They are in cells that were designed for one person but now there are two people in them, and the cells — you can reach across and lay down and touch all the walls. So it’s not designed for the people that are there. It is dark and dingy. It has mice infestations, which the state has been dealing with for over a year. The attitude or the anxiety level within the facility due to being on lockdown, as you mentioned, since June of 2023, it’s creating an awful lot of anxiety and a lot of I’ll say violence. In 2023, the number of investigations for violent offenses that take place in GBCI equal that — almost equal that of 2021 and 2022 combined and they were on lockdown for half the year.

Frederica Freyberg:
Have —

Jim Rafter:
So the conditions just aren’t good.

Frederica Freyberg:
Have your calls to close Green Bay Correctional fallen on deaf ears?

Jim Rafter:
No. We have gained bipartisan support from state legislators, county elected leaders, local municipality leaders across northeast Wisconsin. I’ve never heard anyone say no, they don’t want to close it. The challenge is agreeing on what to do after they close it.

Frederica Freyberg:
Right, because where would those inmates go from Green Bay. Other max security prisons themselves are over capacity and have their own safety issues.

Jim Rafter:
Right. The options that I’ve heard, I know the governor wants to reduce the prison population and hopefully move people out of places like GBCI and into other facilities. That may be an opportunity. There are those who are calling to have a new prison, a replacement prison most likely for GBCI and potentially Waupun, to be able to provide so that they can provide the services and programs needed by those who are incarcerated. I’ve been inside four times over the last eight years. I’ve been in without the governor and I’ve toured it with the governor and Secretary Carr and when I go in there, you really don’t see a lot of programs going on because they just don’t do the programming very much anymore. People can’t get education. They can’t get health services, but when the governor comes in, people are lined up in the corridors welcoming him and shaking his hand, and when I toured it with him, he asked where in the psych ward area and he asked how many people need psychological services and the answer was about 60%. So it’s about 600 people, and he said how many beds do we have, and they said 13. And then he asked what do we do for the others? They shrugged their shoulders. They do what they can, but basically the mental health needs across our corrections system and I’ve learned an awful lot over the last eight years about this, it’s tremendous. You basically have three populations: those who are mentally ill and need help, those who have made terrible mistakes in life and will not reform, and then you have a group of those who have made terrible mistakes but are willing, able and interested in learning how to come back into society safely. And we need to have the programs in our state to be able to do that. We don’t today.

Frederica Freyberg:
Jim Rafter from Allouez, thanks very much.

Jim Rafter:
Thank you very much.