Wisconsin governor floats plan to close 19th-century prison and overhaul corrections system
MADISON, Wis. — Wisconsin’s second-oldest prison, built in the 1800s and long targeted for closure, would finally be shuttered under a new plan from Gov. Tony Evers that proposes sweeping changes to the state’s troubled correctional system without building a new facility, as some lawmakers have long called for.
Evers presented his plan as the best and only option to address the state’s aging facilities, which have been beset with deaths of incarcerated people, assaults against staff including one that left a juvenile guard dead, lockdowns, lawsuits, federal investigations, criminal charges against prison staff, resignations and rising maintenance costs.
The roughly $500 million proposal, made public on Sunday, would be subject to approval by the Republican-controlled Legislature, which has backed some aspects in the past but also has repeatedly blocked initiatives by the Democratic governor.
Evers cast the proposal as a better option than building a new adult prison that he said would take at least a decade to complete and cost more than $1.3 billion.
“This plan is as good as plans get,” Evers said at a Friday briefing while encouraging Democrats and Republicans to work together to enact it. “We have to get this done, period.”
The state’s current trajectory of maintaining aging, overcrowded and understaffed prisons is not sustainable, Evers said.
The multi-tiered plan starts with finally closing the troubled Lincoln Hills and Cooper Lake juvenile correctional facilities in northern Wisconsin and building a new one near Madison at the site of a current minimum security prison. The Lincoln Hills campus would then be converted into a medium security adult prison. The prison in Green Bay, built in 1898, would be closed.
The plan also proposes that the state’s oldest prison in Waupun, built in 1851, be converted from a maximum security prison to a medium security center focused on vocational training. The Stanley Correctional Center would be converted from a medium to a maximum security prison and the prison in Hobart would be expanded to add 200 minimum security beds.
Another key part of the plan is expanding options for those convicted of nonviolent offenses to participate in the earned release program and be set free earlier.
All of the changes would take place over the next six years.
Republicans and Democrats alike have been calling for years to close both the prisons in Waupun and Green Bay. But concerns over job losses in the communities and the cost of building a new prison have been stumbling blocks.
There would be no staff layoffs under the new plan, the Evers administration said.
Evers said he hoped lawmakers would come together and support the plan, much like they did in 2017 when they agreed to close the Lincoln Hills juvenile prison. Eight years later, that prison remains open amid obstacles to fully implementing the closure plan.
