Here & Now

Wisconsin’s Prisons Face Overcrowding

Frederica Freyberg:

In the midst of the budget work Governor Evers signed a bill that will delay closing the Lincoln Hills youth prison until July of 2021. The governor says more time is needed for construction of replacement facilities. Prisons and prison over-crowding is the focus of a new report out from our partners at Wisconsin Watch. Governor Evers pledged to cut prison population by 50%, but there are numerous challenges to that goal as detailed in the story. Dee Hall is the managing editor at the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism and she joins us now. Thanks very much for being here.

Dee Hall:

Thanks for having me.

Frederica Freyberg:

So one of the things that your reporter describes is that the Evers’ campaign again promised to cut the prison population by 50% while at the same time he’s increasing his corrections budget to increase prison beds because of over-crowding. So both things are true.

Dee Hall:

Yes, they’re true at this moment. So the governor has stated that his goal is to improve the conditions and the conditions are overcrowded. The prisons are also understaffed as has been widely reported. And so what Izabela Zaluska, who’s our reporter on this story found is that they are taking sort of a long approach, which starts with improving conditions both at Taycheedah and Jackson Correctional, but also at the Milwaukee Secure Detention Facility, which is going to get some other upgrades because it’s been very controversial.

Frederica Freyberg:

So how overcrowded are our prisons at this point?

Dee Hall:

About 33% above their designed capacity right now in some places. There are two that really aren’t overcrowded, two adult prisons. But then really the rest of them, the other 18 adult prisons are overcrowded anywhere from just a few percentage points up to 50% above their capacity.

Frederica Freyberg:

So what are the details as to how Governor Evers expects to try to reduce the population?

Dee Hall:

He has some mechanisms at his disposal and some are not. The ones that are at his disposal include reducing or eliminating so-called crimeless revocations. That’s where a person violates a condition of their supervision of their release and is sent back to prison. That’s one that he’s talked a lot about. The other thing that could happen would be to boost paroles. In recent years we’ve been in single digits in terms of the percent of people who apply for parole who are eligible who are actually granted parole. The other thing that he can do is something called a Special Action Release Program. That’s a rarely, rarely used mechanism. We don’t know when it was last used. We weren’t able to figure that out. But it is a special mechanism about 30 years old that allows the Department of Corrections’ secretary to release prisoners in the event of an over-crowding incident.

Frederica Freyberg:

And there are special provisions, though, as part of that Special Action Release Program, right? I means these cannot be people who are in prison for life for murder, for example?

Dee Hall:

Right. You can’t be serving a life sentence. So you have to be within 18 months of your mandatory release, which is an old term actually under the old law, the pre-truth-in-sentencing law. So that’s why those would be the folks most affected by this. You have to be close to being released and no convictions for assaultive behavior or any history of assaultive behavior within the prison system.

Frederica Freyberg:

And so the truth-in-sentencing law went into effect in the —

Dee Hall:

Beginning of 2000.

Frederica Freyberg:

So it would only be inmates presumably that were convicted before that law went into effect?

Dee Hall:

That’s unclear to me right now. But, yes, those are the folks who would meet the definition of what we’re hearing a special release inmate might be.

Frederica Freyberg:

And yet what are the numbers as to how many people he might be able to release under this Special Action Program?

Dee Hall:

That one I’m not sure. They didn’t have any good estimates for us on that one. We do know that hundreds if not thousands of inmates could be released if the so-called crimeless revocations were eliminated. That’s accounting as we speak for 40% of new prison admissions, are people not committing new crimes, but are violating terms of their release and being sent back to prison.

Frederica Freyberg:

What kind of political reaction is there to this?

Dee Hall:

Well, so we have seen some bipartisan moves in this direction. One thing that the Legislature can do because they hold the purse strings is to increase the amount of money for treatment and diversion programs. There’s been a little more put into the budget. The amount that Evers was seeking was disappointing to the advocates. Right now it’s $1 million a year each of the next two years in the biennium that they’ll increase the current program. That’s one that there does seem to be some bipartisan buy-in. There is not buy-in from what we can tell on the issue of changing the truth-in-sentencing law and that has been a major driver of our prison population, which is projected to get to 25,000, which would be a record high in the next two years.

Frederica Freyberg:

Dee Hall, thanks very much and thanks for your work.

Dee Hall:

Thanks for having me.