What's the Plan to Restructure the Wisconsin Prison System?

Frederica Freyberg:
A major overhaul of Wisconsin’s prison system got off the starting blocks this week, when the State Building Commission voted to approve $15 million to start the planning phase. As “Here & Now” reporter Steven Potter tells us, Governor Tony Evers’ six-year, $500 million plan is wide ranging and touches multiple institutions across the state.

Dora Drake:
We need to ensure that folks that are currently incarcerated need to have adequate conditions, at least. That’s the bare minimum.

Steven Potter:
In a proposal from Governor Tony Evers that’s supported by his fellow Democrats in the state Legislature, several significant upgrades and changes would be made to the state prison system.

Andre Jacque:
We’re the only path forward, and I certainly hope that we can still find a way forward is through bipartisan consensus.

Steven Potter:
Recently, Evers again urged the State Building Commission, which met earlier this week, to approve spending $15 million to set in motion what he calls a comprehensive correctional facilities plan. The governor first unveiled this plan, which he calls a “domino series of projects across six DOC facilities” during the state budget process earlier this year.

Tony Evers:
These steps are each a critical part, a crucial part of this comprehensive plan. And they have to happen together.

Steven Potter:
Primary among these changes is closing the Green Bay Correctional Institution, a 125-year-old facility, which has seen severe understaffing and overcrowding issues, as well as inmate violence and lengthy prisoner lockdowns. Another change would be to transform the Waupun Correctional Institution into a “vocational village that would create skills training and workforce readiness programs for inmates to help them land jobs after their release.” Other changes include converting the Stanley Correctional Institution into a larger capacity maximum security facility, and converting the John Burke Correctional Center, also in Waupun, into a female institution and adding hundreds of more beds there. The Evers’ plan also calls for adding more minimum-security beds to the Sanger B. Powers Correctional Center in Outagamie County, and to convert the long-troubled youth prisons of Lincoln Hills and Copper Lake in far northern Wisconsin into adult facilities.

Tony Evers:
There’s not an alternative to my plan that is safer, faster and cheaper. Period. Except for doing nothing.

Steven Potter:
State Senator Dora Drake, who represents parts of and some suburbs of northern Milwaukee, wants to see the funding for the plan move forward.

Dora Drake:
Put funding where it needs to go so we can close down some of our facilities that we know are severely outdated and it’s harmful for folks that are incarcerated and the workers. Provide a different system where we are providing vocational opportunities.

Steven Potter:
Separate and aside from this push for Governor Evers’ new prison plans, there is already major change underway for where the state houses minors convicted of serious crimes. And that’s through the construction of a brand-new youth prison for boys in Milwaukee, being built in Senator Drake’s district. With money already allocated, the new youth prison in Milwaukee is expected to cost $78 million. It will include educational, vocational, counseling and recreational programs aimed at lowering the recidivism rate for young people in the juvenile justice system.

Dora Drake:
It’s needed because our children need to be closer to home. If we’re serious about uplifting our young people, then all of us have a part to play in that. Point blank, period.

Steven Potter:
Drake points out that the state corrections system needs all of these changes, and even more adjustments to better help the majority of prisoners who will ultimately be released.

Dora Drake:
Whether you’re a child or an adult, you are coming home. And so what are we doing to ensure that you get the wraparound services to not only come back home and have a fair shot at being successful, but what can we be doing as a state in being proactive?

Steven Potter:
Reporting from Madison, I’m Steven Potter for “Here & Now.”