The Wisconsin State Capitol reflected in the glass windows of Park Bank on the Capitol Square in Madison. (Wisconsin Examiner photo)

Candidates for some districts of the Wisconsin State Legislature on the eastern side of the state recently shared their positions on criminal justice issues. Their stances varied, even among candidates of the same political party. 

Two advocacy organizations, JOSHUA and the League of Women Voters, conducted interviews with the candidates. Another group, SOPHIA, held a candidate forum for Assembly candidates for the 13th, 15th and 82nd districts. The events addressed criminal justice and housing, among other issues.

David Liners, executive director of the statewide network that includes both JOSHUA and SOPHIA, said he wants to expand the group of people who are willing to hold their decision makers accountable on this issue.

“[We believe part of our mission] is to make sure that the people who are not directly impacted by the criminal legal system understand and feel what’s being done,” Liners said. “Partly because what’s being done in our prisons is being done with our money, but it’s being done in our name.” 

Both events covered the controversial Green Bay and Waupun prisons. A former Waupun warden and eight members of his staff were charged with crimes related to the treatment of incarcerated people, the Examiner reported in early June. The Examiner reported on life at GBCI in August. State lawmakers have heard testimony alleging problems in Wisconsin prisons at committee hearings. 

No Republicans attended the forum or provided an interview, but the Examiner received responses from four candidates who didn’t attend the events.

SOPHIA forum addresses electronic monitoring, Truth in Sentencing, juvenile justice 

Sarah Harrison, a Democrat running for the 15th Assembly District, expressed support for the practice of electronic monitoring in the community over maintaining the current number of people behind bars in Wisconsin facilities. Kevin Reilly, Democrat candidate for the 82nd Assembly District, also supported electronic monitoring. 

Harrison said she thinks “we need to find ways to get people into programs where they can continue being part of the community.” 

Reilly’s opponent, Rep. Scott Allen (R-Waukesha), currently represents the 97th Assembly District, but he has been redistricted into the 82nd. 

Allen told the Examiner that electronic monitoring is a tool for our courts to use, but he expressed some reservations. He said he’s been told that clever individuals have determined ways to remove the device at will. 

Allen said it seems electronic monitoring should only be used only on people who do not pose a threat to society. 

“This tool is not a panacea to the problem of overcrowding in our prisons,” Allen said. 

Reilly and Harrison expressed support for juvenile justice reform. Harrison said she supports legislation that would keep underage offenders from being tried as adults “except in some sort of extraordinary circumstances.” She instead pointed to diversion programs, counseling and drug treatment programs. 

Allen said charging minors as adults should be “rare.” He said it is “reserved for the most heinous of crimes.” 

“Charging minors as adults ought to be rare, but it should remain an option if we are going to remain mindful of the importance of public safety,” Allen said.

Candidates at the forum also discussed the elimination of parole for certain crimes under a “Truth in Sentencing” law in Wisconsin. 

Harrison wasn’t familiar with the two-decade-old law when asked a question during the forum. After hearing others talk about it, she said she would support repealing it. Reilly criticized the law.

“It’s one of those scare things that certain people are putting out there, along with several other legislations that make it difficult for the people that are really working hard to change their lives, to move forward and get out of prison… it’s one of a number of different laws that have demonized, basically, the criminal justice system,” Reilly said. 

Allen didn’t rule out reforming parole restrictions in Wisconsin. He said “our number one goal should remain public safety” and “any and all reforms should be viewed through that lens.” 

“Constituents have described to me a lack of incentive for good behavior and reform for the residents in our Department of Corrections facilities,” Allen said. “I’ve been told that there is a certain blackmail culture that allows for intimidation to occur amongst the prison population. I’m not certain what reforms would make sense at this point in time, but a comprehensive review of current practices would help.”

The Wisconsin Department of Corrections (DOC) has been in negotiations with a third party, Falcon Correctional and Community Services, to conduct a review of DOC policies and procedures and offer recommendations.

Candidates respond to scrutiny of troubled prisons 

Candidates gave a variety of answers when asked about the Green Bay and Waupun prisons. 

Democrat Amaad Rivera-Wagner is running for the 90th Assembly District, which covers central Green Bay and is a likely Democratic seat, Wisconsin Watch reported. He spoke about housing people  who’ve committed crimes, creating room and space elsewhere before getting rid of GBCI and carrying out criminal justice reform, such as bail reform and legalization of marijuana. 

“I think that people in Green Bay and the Legislature can walk and chew gum at the same time,” Rivera-Wagner said. “…And we’ve seen how overcrowding at this prison has caused problems…We’ve seen the staffing there to be less than 80% full. And so we need to do something to reform that immediately.”

The current vacancy rate at GBCI for correctional officers and sergeants is 11.6%, according to DOC data. 

In a letter in May published by Fox 11, Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers said any plan to close GBCI “must be comprehensive and considered holistically based on the needs of Wisconsin’s adult corrections program.” He also said a new facility would not realistically be able to start accommodating incarcerated people in this decade. 

Evers said there must be “a serious conversation about criminal justice reform in Wisconsin” and a meaningful effort to find consensus on “evidence-based, science-driven measures” to reduce the number of people in Wisconsin prisons, focusing on treatment and rehabilitation. 

“Any conversation about closing GBCI must begin there,” Evers said.

Jessica Henderson, Rivera-Wagner’s Republican opponent, told the Examiner she supports closing the Green Bay and Waupun facilities “as long as it does not mean releasing violent offenders into the community.”

Henderson said there is a lack of mental health services that can lead to more people being incarcerated. She said from her experience, access to mental health care reduces incarceration. Decreasing the prison population would eliminate the need to keep Green Bay and Waupun operating, she said. 

Democrat Jamie Wall is running for Senate District 30, which covers the metropolitan Green Bay region and is a toss-up, Wisconsin Watch reported. He said closing the prisons requires determining what should happen with the incarcerated people living there, which means looking at what the prison and criminal justice systems should look like. He promoted increasing alcohol and drug treatment for nonviolent offenders. 

“Now unfortunately in Madison, all of that has been bolloxed up in partisanship,” Wall said. “And I think my opponent would contribute to that.” 

Wall’s opponent, Jim Rafter, categorized the people incarcerated in Waupun and GBCI into three groups: people serving life sentences, people with significant mental health needs and people who have committed serious crimes but have a chance at rehabilitation. He supports closing both prisons. 

“We need a facility that addresses these unique needs from day one, providing specialized programs and services,” Rafter said. “Since 90% of incarcerated individuals will eventually be released, it is critical that we provide the tools necessary to ensure their safe reintegration into our communities.”

Democrat Ryan Spaude is running for Assembly District 89, a toss-up district that includes Ashwaubenon and borders the Fox River to the east, Wisconsin Watch reported.

“We could probably talk about other facilities, but a maximum security prison cannot simply be shut down,” Spaude said. “It must be replaced.” 

One question from SOPHIA said in part that they believe by reducing crimeless revocations and increasing earned release programming and treatment alternatives, Wisconsin could reduce its prison population and close the two facilities without building a new one.

Reilly said Minnesota has the same demographics as Wisconsin but is “doing a phenomenally better job.” He echoed Henderson’s message on mental health.

“…A lot of people in prison are there because of addiction, they’re there because of mental health, they’re there because they might even be cognitively declined,” Reilly said. 

Reilly expressed support for closing the two prisons without building a new one. Allen told the Examiner over email that “a new prison needs to be built.” 

Rep. David Steffen (R-Green Bay) told the Examiner that the two prisons are too expensive, small and dangerous to continue operating. Replacing them with a modern facility would reduce operating and maintenance costs and provide a safer, more productive environment for staff and incarcerated people, he said. 

In a statement in April, Rep. Shae Sortwell (R-Two Rivers) said that due to Wisconsin’s budget surplus, “a plan to close GBCI and build a new prison has never had a better opportunity.”

Criminal justice was not the only topic covered by the SOPHIA forum and the interviews from JOSHUA and League of Women Voters. The candidate interviews can be viewed on LOWV’s YouTube page.

Sortwell’s office said he was unavailable and unable to comment. 

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The Waupun prison sits in the middle of a residential neighborhood (Photo | Wisconsin Examiner)

Friday the 13th of September is the gloomy anniversary of the signing of the federal 1994 Crime Bill. It is also a chance to start to remedy a horrible mistake.

It seems rare that there is consensus among leaders of both of our political parties to make a significant change. Sometimes, those are great steps forward. Sometimes it is just a big bipartisan mistake. Such was the case 30 years ago when the US Congress and President Bill Clinton passed and signed the 1994 Crime Bill.  

In 1994, our leaders saw a real problem – the toll being taken by drug addiction. But they came up with the wrong solution. That mistake cost billions of dollars; it devastated entire communities; it broke up families; it ruined thousands of lives.

The 1994 Crime Bill had very little impact on crime. In the U.S., as in Wisconsin, there is almost no relationship between crime levels and prison population levels. The Crime Bill did, however, devastate many communities, especially low-income communities and communities of color.  The Crime Bill introduced extremely harsh penalties for even low-level drug crimes. Famously, it was far harder on crimes involving crack than for crimes involving powder cocaine, which resulted in more and longer incarceration for central city residents. The population of U.S. federal prisons in 1994 was less than 50,000. Today, it is more than 158,000.

The 1994 Crime Bill had a huge impact on Wisconsin and other states. The Crime Bill helped pay for new prisons.  It rewarded police departments for increasing their arrest rates as well as tougher sentencing laws, like Wisconsin’s so-called ‘Truth in Sentencing.”   Aided and encouraged by the Crime Bill, Wisconsin’s prison population went from less than 10,000 in 1994 to more than 22,000 today.   

In Wisconsin in 2024, there is a new bipartisan consensus: We need to close at least two of Wisconsin’s prisons. The Green Bay Correctional Institution (GBCI) and the Waupun Correctional Institution (WCI) were built in the 1800’s. Both have received a lot of well-deserved negative publicity recently, as people have died and as the horrid conditions in those prisons have become better known. Even with dramatic pay increases, the Department of Corrections has not been able to keep enough staff to fully run programs at GBCI and WCI. The facilities are dangerous and outdated. Even spending about $50 million for each facility every year, it is impossible to make them suitable for humans to live in, or even to want to work in.

We all, Republicans, Democrats and Independents, believe GBCI and WCI need to be closed.  The question is: How? There are those who want to spend $500 million of taxpayer money to build a new prison. We believe there is a better way.

Wisconsin can close the Waupun and Green Bay prisons by taking common sense steps to safely reduce the prison population. Consider this: the combined populations of GBCI and WCI is about 2,000 people, less than 10% of the prison population. In Wisconsin’s 38 prisons, there are about 5,000 people incarcerated for “crimeless revocations.”  These are people who served a sentence and have been sent back for a technical violation of their terms of supervision – not because of another crime. By reducing such revocations, as states like Texas have done, we could easily have 2,000 fewer people in prison in less than a year.  

Thousands of people in Wisconsin prisons are, as part of their sentence, eligible to participate in “Earned Release” programs. But, we have not funded the Earned Release program sufficiently, so that many of them wait for years to get into the program so they can go home. We have hundreds of senior citizens languishing in Wisconsin prisons, some of them in assisted living wings of prisons.  

To build a new prison would cost Wisconsin about $500 million, and would take at least 4-5 years. In the meantime, we would o force incarcerated people and staff to continue suffering in WCI and GBCI.  Common sense policies could safely reduce the population such that we could create enough space to move everybody out of the Green Bay and Waupun prisons within a year.

In 1994, we spent billions to build the incarceration infrastructure. In 2024 we can turn that around, and we can reinvest the savings in education, mental health and addiction treatment and other programs that will heal and revitalize the communities the Crime Bill helped to devastate.

After 30 years, we have a new chance to get it right. We can get it right in Wisconsin by closing our worst prisons without building new ones.  And, in 2025 our new President needs to work with the new Congress to repeal the 1994 Crime Bill, and replace it with a 2025 Justice Reinvestment Bill.

 

Angela Lang Robert Kraig David Liners
Black Leaders Organizing Communities (BLOC) Citizen Action of Wisconsin WISDOM