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• The state’s prison population keeps growing — as does the share of older prisoners who have increasingly complex health care needs. 

• Increased use of compassionate release could help ease costs and crowding with minimal risks to public safety, prisoner advocates and legal experts say.

• Wisconsin courts approved just 53, or 11%, of 489 compassionate release petitions received between January 2019 and June 2025.

• California offers a different model for sick and dying prisoners, including by processing compassionate release applications more quickly, the result of a legislative overhaul.

It’s hard to find hope in a terminal illness. But for Darnell Price, the spread of a cancerous tumor opened the door for a new life. It was a chance to spend his remaining days outside of prison.

Two Wisconsin Department of Corrections doctors in 2023 projected Price would die within a year — one of several criteria by which prisoners may seek a shortened sentence due to an “extraordinary health condition,” a form of compassionate release.  

That was only the first step. A Corrections committee next had to vet his application. Its approval would send Price’s application to the court that convicted him for charges related to a 2015 bank robbery.

Victims of the crime did not oppose an early release, and a judge granted Price’s petition. That allowed him to walk free in August 2023 after an eight-year stint behind bars.

Price beat the odds in multiple ways. He’s still alive in his native Milwaukee and has authored a memoir about his journey. That his application succeeded is nearly as remarkable as his survival. 

Wisconsin grants few applicants compassionate release, leaving many severely ill inmates in short-staffed prisons that often struggle to meet health care needs. 

Wisconsin courts approved just 53, or 11%, of 489 compassionate release petitions they received between January 2019 and June 2025 — about eight petitions a year, Corrections data show. Courts approved just five of 63 petitions filed in all of 2024. 

That’s as the state’s adult prison population has swelled past 23,500, eclipsing the system’s built capacity. A growing share of those prisoners — 1 in 10 — are 60 or older with increasingly intense health care needs. 

Increased use of compassionate release could help ease costs and crowding with minimal risks to public safety, prisoner advocates and legal experts say, but it remains off limits to a significant share of the prison population in Wisconsin and elsewhere, including those posing little threat to the public.  

“The door is closed to so many people right at the very beginning,” said Mary Price, senior counsel for Families Against Mandatory Minimums, a nonprofit advocate for criminal justice reform. 

“There’s lots of good arguments why they ought to be released: They’re the most expensive people to incarcerate and the least likely to reoffend.”

Wisconsin’s aging prison population 

Wisconsin’s struggle to care for its graying prison population has long drawn concern.

By 2014, Corrections counted more than 900 inmates over the age of 60, or about 4% of the overall population. Citing that number, then-department medical director James Greer wondered in a WPR interview: 

“What’s that 900 (inmates) over 60 going to look like? It’s going to (be) 1,100? Is it going to be 1,200 in five years? And if so, how are (we) going to manage those in a correctional setting and keep them safe?”

Those projections undershot the trend. By the end of 2019, state prisons held more than 1,600 people older than 60. That number stood at 2,165 by the end of last year, nearly 10% of the population.

The state’s truth-in-sentencing law, which took effect in 2000, has helped drive that trend. It virtually eliminated parole for newly convicted offenders.

“Old law” prisoners sentenced before the change were eligible for release after serving 25% of their time. They were mandatorily released after serving two-thirds of their time. 

Truth-in-sentencing required prisoners to serve 100% of their sentences plus post-release “extended supervision” of at least 25% of the original sentence. Parole remains available only to those sentenced before 2000. 

The overhaul increased lockup time by nearly two years on average, said Michael O’Hear, a Marquette University Law School professor and expert on criminal punishment. That likely contributed to the aging trend. Lengthened post-release supervision played an even bigger role, if indirectly. 

“​​The longer a person serves on supervision, the greater the likelihood of revocation and return to prison,” O’Hear said.

Separately, harsher sentencing for drunken driving also sent more people to prison. 

Older prisoners need more health care 

As prisoners age, they develop more complicated medical needs. Research is finding that the conditions of incarceration —  overcrowding, lack of quality health care and psychological stress — accelerate those needs. Such conditions can shorten life expectancy by up to two years for every year behind bars, one study in New York state found.

“In Wisconsin overcrowding is a huge issue. Assigning more people to a room than they’re supposed to, which, of course, affects your sleep,” said Farah Kaiksow, associate professor of medicine at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, who has researched aging and care in prison. 

The state has recognized the growing needs of older prisoners. In 2023, for instance, it opened a $7 million addition to the minimum-security Oakhill Correctional Institution that includes dozens of assisted living beds. 

“Patients are helped with daily living tasks such as eating, dressing, hygiene, mobility, etc. Patients may be admitted for temporary rehab stays after injury or illness or longer-term stays due to age and frailty,” Corrections spokesperson Beth Hardtke said.

Hardtke also cited hospice programs at Dodge, Taycheedah and Oshkosh prisons. 

But the department has struggled to recruit and retain competent medical staff. A Wisconsin Watch/New York Times investigation last year found nearly a third of the 60 prison staff physicians employed over a decade faced previous censure by a state medical board for an error or breach of ethics. Many faced lawsuits from inmates accusing them of serious errors that caused suffering or death. 

That included a doctor whom Darnell Price sued for failing to order a biopsy on his growing tumor. She had surrendered her medical license in California after pleading guilty to a drug possession charge and no contest to a charge of prescription forgery. 

Meanwhile, two Waupun Correctional Institution nurses are facing felony charges relating to deaths of two prisoners in their custody. One prisoner, 62-year-old Donald Maier, died in February 2024 from malnutrition and dehydration.

Compassionate release seen as cost saver

Advocates say boosting compassionate release could save taxpayer money in a state that spends more than its neighbors on incarceration. Health care tends to cost more for older prisoners.  

Wisconsin lawmakers in the state’s most recent budget assumed that per prisoner health care costs will increase to $6,554 by 2026-27 — a fraction of the roughly $50,000 officials say it costs to incarcerate one person in Wisconsin. 

The corrections department did not provide information breaking down health care costs by age. But a study of North Carolina’s prison system found that it spent about four times as much on health care for prisoners older than 50 compared to others. A 2012 ACLU report found it cost twice as much to incarcerate older prisoners nationally.

Most states and the Federal Bureau of Prisons have some version of compassionate release, though they vary wildly. 

Wisconsin offers two main avenues: one based on medical condition and the other based on age and time served. Over the last seven years, Wisconsin has been more likely to grant petitions for early release based on medical reasons. 

State law bars compassionate release for old law prisoners convicted before 2000 — about 1,600 people today. Parole is their only option for early release, and the state parole commission has been releasing fewer people on parole in recent years.

That leaves out people like Carmen Cooper, 80, a wheelchair-bound inmate at Fox Lake Correctional Institution who struggles to breathe. He lives with Parkinson’s disease, recurrent cancer and other ongoing pain and says he doesn’t always receive proper medication. 

Convicted of murder and attempted murder in 1993, he is not eligible for parole for another 12 years. He has submitted two compassionate release applications with doctors’ affidavits, but the timing and nature of his convictions ban him from such relief; state law categorically excludes people convicted of Class A or Class B felonies, the most serious types of crime.

Cooper has little hope of dying outside of prison. 

His daughters Qumine Hunter and Carmen Cooper say the incarceration has left a wide gap. He has missed deaths of close family members and births of grandchildren and great-grandchildren he has not met. The sisters never stop looking for ways to bring him home.

“If we got five years, 10 years, two years, whatever years we got left with him, we want all of them,” Hunter said. 

Renagh O’Leary, an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin Law School, represents people in compassionate release hearings. She said several elements of the state’s process limit access, including that petitions first go to a Department of Corrections committee, which must include a social worker and can include health care representatives. 

Committee members might ask for a person’s plan for housing or to explain minor infractions from time in prison. The petition advances to a judge only if the committee unanimously approves. 

Sending petitions directly to the sentencing court would be fairer, O’Leary said. Those and other major changes to the process would require legislative action. 

“We’re talking about how long someone should serve in prison,” she added, “and I think those questions are best answered in a public courtroom, in a transparent process by a judge in the county that imposed the original prison sentence.” 

The courtroom is where crime victims can weigh in. Their opinions depend on individual circumstances, said Amy Brown, the longtime director of victim services at the Dane County District Attorney’s Office. 

“Victims don’t all fall into one category, just like offenders don’t all fall into one category,” she said. 

Another wrinkle in Wisconsin’s compassionate release system: Doctors must attest to prisoners having less than six to 12 months to live. Some doctors feel uncomfortable making such a prediction. 

“It’s really hard for a doctor to say, ‘Yeah, he’s going to be dead in six months,’” said Michele DiTomas, hospice medical director for the California Medical Facility in Vacaville, California. “You just don’t know. Some people will be dead in three months, some people will go on for 18 months.”

California a compassionate release model

California offers a different model for sick and dying prisoners. 

The 17-bed hospice unit DiTomas runs, the first of its kind in the U.S., offers dying men as much comfort as can be found within a prison: medications that ease pain, visits from family members, time outdoors and attention from other incarcerated men who have been trained to provide hospice care. That hasn’t stopped DiTomas from working to get people approved for compassionate release so they can finish their lives at home.  

California’s compassionate release process used to require a string of signatures — from the corrections secretary, the parole board, the governor and the original sentencing court — and often took longer than a person had left to live, she said. Similar barriers exist in many states.   

The state a decade ago approved about 10 applications on average each year, DiTomas said, with approvals taking four to six months. A legislative overhaul streamlined the process. The state now approves about 100 compassionate release applications a year, taking as little as four weeks each, DiTomas said. 

The changes resulted from leaders’ collaboration after recognizing that the previous system wasn’t working.

“We can give people their humanity and preserve public safety,” DiTomas said. “It’s not necessarily one or the other.” 

Housing shortage complicates release 

Price initially lacked a place to stay while applying for compassionate release in 2023. It was his job to fix that or risk dooming his application.

“They can deny you for not having a solid plan for housing, but it’s not something they help you with,” he said.  

He found a room in a transitional housing unit in Milwaukee through a faith-based organization. Had he required more intensive care, a nursing home may be a better option. But many nursing homes don’t accept someone fresh out of prison — a challenge described in a 2020 Legislative Audit Bureau report.  

Wisconsin faces a wide shortage of affordable senior care beds, let alone for people with a criminal record. 

That’s a problem nationwide, said Price, the Families Against Mandatory Minimums attorney. As more than 60,000 people aged 50 or older leave prison each year, housing demand continues to outpace supply. Her organization is creating a clearinghouse to help match prisoners who qualify for compassionate release with pro bono lawyers to help them find beds. 

O’Leary said that illustrates how expanding compassionate release in Wisconsin would require more post-prison housing options. 

Life on the outside

Price now lives in a modest efficiency apartment on Milwaukee’s north side. It doesn’t have much, he said, but it has everything he needs, including a laptop and smart TV to watch Packers highlights. On his wall hangs a framed version of the Wisconsin Watch/New York Times story that detailed his struggle to receive medical care in prison — a gift from his attorneys. The tumors still lurk in his body, though for now they do not seem to be growing. 

Price has faced some of his toughest challenges since leaving prison. 

The opioids doctors prescribed to ease his pain triggered a past cocaine addiction, Price said, and drug use cost him the first place he stayed.

But Price checked into a treatment facility in February 2024. He managed to stay sober in 24-hour increments. The days eventually turned into weeks.  

“At that time I didn’t have a plan. But in treatment, I started feeling better and better until finally, the lights started coming back,” he said. “Then there came a point that I even wanted to go back to that life.”  

Kyesha Felts, with whom Price shares a daughter, is also taking life one day at a time, enjoying the time she gets to spend with the man she has loved for 30 years. 

“I love it,” she said of Price being home. “I’m enjoying every minute of it. Because tomorrow’s promised to nobody.”

She said she admires his intelligence, the way he treats people and his strength and resilience. 

Price is now eight months sober, and he’s proud of the memoir he published, “The Ultimate Betrayal,” a chronicle of addiction, incarceration and redemption. He tells his story around the community. He doesn’t hold anything back, he said, because it’s all part of his testimony. 

Wisconsin rarely grants compassionate release as aging, ailing prisoners stress systems is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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• Maintaining relationships between children and incarcerated parents helps mitigate the negative impacts of the separation. Family visits have been shown to reduce recidivism. 

• At Camp Reunite, children spend a week at a traditional summer camp, with access to outdoors activities and trauma-informed programming. Two days out of the week, campers spend an entire day with their incarcerated parents.

• The program is accessible only to children of those incarcerated at Taycheedah and Kettle Moraine prisons, but the camp is discussing an expansion to Racine Correctional Institution.  

• Stigma surrounding incarceration and transportation barriers have limited growth of the camp.

The thunk of a plastic bat followed each pitch and question Tasha H. lobbed toward her 14-year-old son. She cheered after each hit as she tracked down the whiffle ball and prepared her next throw. 

“Maybe baseball next year?” 

No, he responded before hitting the ball over his mom’s head. He plans to try out for varsity football instead.

“You’re getting a lot better than you give yourself credit for,” Tasha told him.

Standing in a patch of green grass in late June, working to extract more than one-word answers from her son, Tasha looked like a typical mom of a soon-to-be high schooler. But as the ball landed on the wrong side of a chain rope fence, it was clear they were not standing in a backyard or baseball field. 

“I can’t go get that,” she said. 

The fence stood only about 2 feet high. But Tasha could not cross it or the much taller, barbed fence bordering Taycheedah Correctional Institution in Fond du Lac — not for at least another year. 

The brief batting practice was part of Camp Reunite, a program for children with incarcerated parents. Before camp, Tasha had not seen her son in the year since she was arrested for crimes she committed related to a drug relapse.

WPR and Wisconsin Watch are withholding the last names of parents or kids included in the story at the request of Camp Reunite to protect the campers’ privacy.

One of the first things Tasha noticed about her son was that he’s taller than her now. 

“Then he spoke and it was like a man, and I was appalled,” Tasha said. “I know that sounds crazy, but I just want to be there as much as I can, even though I’m in here.”

They both needed the visit, she said. 

Maintaining relationships between children and incarcerated parents helps mitigate the negative impacts of the separation, experts say. Family visits have been shown to reduce recidivism. 

Camp Reunite allows children to spend a week at a traditional summer camp where they can hike, canoe and participate in trauma-informed programming like art therapy. Two days out of the week, campers get to spend an entire day with their incarcerated parents in a more relaxed setting than typical visits.

Despite the camp’s success for parents and their kids, it remains unique to Wisconsin and has operated in just two prisons this summer: the women’s prison at Taycheedah and Kettle Moraine, a nearby men’s facility.

Public opinion is the camp’s biggest obstacle, said Chloe Blish, the camp’s mental wellness director. Prison and camp staff described hearing and reading concerns over the perception that the program is a safety risk — and that it rewards incarcerated parents. 

Past media coverage of the camp has prompted online backlash against named parents — personal attacks that older campers can read and absorb, Blish said.

She wishes skeptics could experience a day at Camp Reunite, she said. “It’s electric.”

Tasha and her son started their reunion playing the board game Sorry!

“I miss you,” she said before moving her pawn 10 spaces and asking if he signed up to attend the winter camp. 

He nodded before knocking her piece back to the start, softly telling his mom “sorry.”

Between turns and debates about the rules, she asked about school, football, friends, food at camp and where he got his shoes. He reminded her that she bought them for him. She told him he needed to clean them with an old toothbrush, which led to a short lecture about how often he should replace his toothbrush. 

He asked her why she didn’t spend extra money to get Nikes with her prison uniform, a gray T-shirt and teal scrub pants. They joked about her all-white Reebok sneakers.

“I’m glad you came,” she said. “It’s been a long time, huh?”

Not like other camps

When Taycheedah social worker Rachel Fryda-Gehde heard officials were trying to host a camp at the prison, her first reaction was: “Nobody’s ever going to entertain such a crazy idea.”

This summer, she helped run the prison’s eighth season. 

She and other camp leaders plan to present on the program’s success at national conferences this fall, she said. They want to see the camp grow, but there are barriers, including public perception.

The nonprofit Hometown Heroes runs the camp in coordination with the Wisconsin Department of Corrections.

Camp Hometown Heroes started as a summer camp for children whose parents died after serving in the military. The camp paid to fly Blish and her sister from California to Wisconsin during summers when they were teenagers.

She still loves Hometown Heroes, but Camp Reunite has more impact, she said.

“There’s a lot of camps for gold star kids, that’s easy support,” Blish said. Things are different at Camp Reunite.

She and other camp leaders often work in the kitchen, filling in to wash dishes during Camp Reunite. During Hometown Heroes, that’s never necessary, because so many community members volunteer to help, she said. 

Hometown Heroes, an exponentially larger operation, also receives more individual donations because of people who have a passion for helping veterans and military families, wrote Liz Braatz, the camp’s director of development. 

She has heard the stigma around supporting people in prison, she wrote in an email. But discussing the camp as a way to help children affected by trauma “has made all the difference” in reshaping perceptions, she said. 

Outside of camp, the organization provides campers with new clothing, school supplies and hygiene products. 

“It does not matter who your God is or who you vote for, if your passion is helping these kids,” Braatz wrote. 

The camp is in conversation with Racine Correctional Institution and now has plans to expand its program next summer. 

The Wisconsin Department of Corrections would welcome Camp Reunite in additional facilities, spokesperson Beth Hardtke said. 

Barriers stifle attendance 

The camp faces additional obstacles in expanding its service. 

This summer’s camp at Taycheedah was far from capacity. There were enough camp staff for more than 100 kids, Blish said. But just over a dozen families showed up. 

“We started out with a lot more,” Fryda-Gehde said. 

There are two major requirements for moms to join the camp: no sex crime convictions and no major conduct issues in the six months leading up to camp. This year’s attendance shrank after women were placed into segregation cells after breaking prison rules.

Prison social workers spend months with the moms to prepare for camp. Moms create posters to decorate their campers’ bunk beds, while prison staff set up activity stations like a beauty parlor and photo booth in the visiting room.

But the biggest reason for lower attendance: getting some caregivers on board. 

Some kids might not be ready to visit with their incarcerated parents, Blish said. Other times, caretakers are hesitant to allow them in a prison or struggle to get them there. 

Women are more likely than men to be the primary caretakers for their children at the time of arrest. That often leads to major life disruptions for campers visiting the women’s prison who are more likely to live with foster placements or more distant relatives. 

Even caretakers comfortable with the camp might struggle to get there. Many families lack cars, Blish said. The camp tries to arrange rides for as many kids as possible, but it can’t always pick up kids who live farther away. 

‘You’re here to have fun’

Nyzaiah and his three younger siblings live with their grandparents in Milwaukee. Camp was the first time they’ve made the more than hourlong drive to visit their mom since she was incarcerated. 

“I was trying not to cry because I don’t like really showing my emotions to people, but I did drop a tear,” he said. “Me and my mom are really close.”

They talk on the phone around four times a week, but seeing her in person felt different, he said. 

Most of his classmates get picked up by their parents. Only his close friends know why his grandparents pick him up each day.

“At home, I’m big brother. I gotta do everything and make sure it’s good. I don’t like to bring a lot of stress on my grandma,” the 13-year-old said. 

But at camp, his brothers and sister are in separate cabins. 

“The counselors told me, ‘You’re here to have fun. Don’t worry about your siblings. We’ve got them,’” he said. 

Glitter, braids and tearful goodbyes 

Moms aren’t the only ones asking questions at camp. 

“You’ve got a TV?” asked Deloise L.’s 11-year-old son.

“Of course,” she answered. The morning before camp she woke up early from excitement and watched the morning news while she waited. 

Deloise’s children are staying with her sister who brings them for somewhat regular visits throughout the year. But camp is different.

“I love this,” she said. 

During a normal visit, her family is under the supervision of correctional officers, and her movement is more limited. At camp, most of the prison staff present are social workers. Moms walk from activity to activity without asking permission, including to the camp’s crowded “salon.”

Deloise clipped hot pink braids into her teenage daughter’s hair and applied glittery makeup over her eyes. Her son picked out a fake mustache.

As counselors warned that there were 10 minutes left until they would bus back to camp, kids scrambled to get close to their moms. Even the knowledge that they would be back later that week failed to stop the tears.

“When you got to separate from them, that’s when it gets bad,” Deloise said, wiping her eyes with a tissue. “It just gets bad when you want to be around your kids.”

This is her family’s second camp. They plan to attend one more summer camp before her release in 2026.

“I’m learning from my mistakes,” she said. “They won’t have to worry about this again.”

‘I did drop a tear’: Camp Reunite helps kids connect with their incarcerated parents is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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• Boosting corrections officers’ pay initially helped address chronic staffing shortages in Wisconsin prisons, but vacancies have been rising again in recent months. 

• Corrections officers say the trend is predictable as new officers, attracted by competitive starting wages, discover the demands of the work. Improving training, safety and workplace culture would help, they say. 

• Some Democratic lawmakers, prisoner rights advocates and even correctional officers argue that reducing the prison population would improve conditions for inmates and staff.

Responding to staffing shortages that imperiled guards and staff, Wisconsin lawmakers in 2023 significantly increased pay for corrections officers — hoping to retain and attract more workers to the grueling job. 

It helped, at least initially. But following significant progress, staffing vacancies are again growing in many Wisconsin prisons. The data support a common complaint from correctional officers and their supporters: The Department of Corrections and the Legislature must do more to retain officers in the long run. Improving training, safety and workplace culture would help, they say. 

Meanwhile, some Democratic lawmakers, prisoner rights advocates and correctional officers argue that reducing the prison population would improve conditions for inmates and staff by reducing overcrowding and easing tensions. 

The two-year budget Gov. Tony Evers signed last week included a small boost in funding for programs geared at limiting recidivism and additional funding to plan the closure of one of Wisconsin’s oldest prisons. But Republicans removed broader Evers proposals that focused on rehabilitating prisoners, and a plan to close Green Bay’s 127-year-old prison includes few details.

“Reducing the number of people we incarcerate in Wisconsin is critical, both because of the harm that mass incarceration does to individuals and communities, and because of the resulting stress from overburdening prison staff,” Rep. Ryan Clancy, D-Milwaukee, told Wisconsin Watch. “Packing more people into our prisons leads to worse services and worse outcomes when incarcerated folks are released back into the community.” 

Wisconsin Watch and The New York Times last year detailed how Wisconsin officials for nearly a decade failed to take significant steps to slow a hemorrhaging of corrections officers that slowed basic operations to a crawl. During that period prisoners escaped, staff overtime pay soared and lockdowns kept prisoners from exercise, fresh air and educational programming, leading some to routinely threaten suicide.  

At Waupun Correctional Institution, staffing vacancies peaked at 56% in February 2024, leaving more positions open than filled.

As aging staff members retired, the state struggled to replace them, particularly after Act 10, a sweeping 2011 state law that gutted most public workers’ ability to collectively bargain for more attractive conditions. Vacancy rates steadily climbed to 43% in the state’s maximum-security prisons and 35% across all adult institutions before pay raises took effect in October 2023.

Following two years of partisan infighting, the Republican-led Legislature approved a compensation package that increased starting pay for corrections officers from $20.29 to $33 an hour, with a $5 add-on for staff at maximum-security prisons and facilities with vacancy rates above 40% for six months straight. 

Within a year, vacancy rates plunged as low as 15% at maximum-security prisons and 11% across all adult prisons.

Rep. Mark Born, a Beaver Dam Republican who co-chairs the Legislature’s budget-writing Joint Finance Committee, credited legislative action with greatly reducing staffing shortages.  

“As I’ve talked to the prisons in my district, they’re happy to see that the recruit classes are much larger and the vacancies are about half of what they were prior to the action in the last budget,” he told Wisconsin Watch. 

Vacancies rise following initial progress

It’s true that vacancies are nowhere near their previous crisis levels. Those include rates in Waupun and Green Bay, where officials previously locked down prisoners during severe staffing shortages. Green Bay now has just over half the vacancy rate it had during the height of the crisis. Waupun has recovered even more dramatically. After plunging much of last year, its vacancy rate has hovered near 20% in recent months.

But vacancies are increasing across much of the prison system, corrections data show. As of July 1, rates reached 26% at maximum-security prisons and more than 17% overall. The department has lost more than 260 full-time equivalent officer and sergeant positions over the past nine months. 

The vacancy rate at Columbia Correctional Institution in Portage, which has the most gaping staffing shortage, reached 41% on July 1, up from a low of 11% a year ago. 

Push to close Green Bay prison

The new state budget appropriated $15 million “to develop preliminary plans and specifications” to realign the Department of Corrections and eventually close the Green Bay prison, whose vacancy rate has grown from a low of 9% last October to nearly 25%.

Republicans proposed closing the prison by 2029, but Evers used his veto power to remove that date, saying he objected to setting a closure date “while providing virtually no real, meaningful, or concrete plan to do so.” 

How a future prison closure would shape long-term population trends may hinge on what replaces the prison. Evers earlier this year proposed a $500 million overhaul to, among other provisions, close the Green Bay prison; renovate the Waupun prison — adding a “vocational village” to expand workforce training; and convert the scandal-plagued Lincoln Hills and Copper Lake youth prison into an adult facility.

Republicans rejected that more ambitious proposal in crafting the bill that became law. 

Closing the Green Bay prison without replacing its capacity might reduce the prison population — and ease staffing shortages, Clancy argues. With less space to put those convicted of crimes, judges might issue shorter sentences, he said. 

“Every time I’ve spoken with a criminal judge, I’ve asked if they are aware of the number of beds available when they sentence someone. They always are,” Clancy said. “And I ask if that knowledge impacts their sentencing decisions. It always does.”

But for now, corrections employees are supervising a rising number of prisoners. The state’s total prison population is up about 7% since the compensation boost took effect. Wisconsin now houses more than 23,400 prisoners in facilities built for about 17,700, with the state budget estimating that number to rise over the next two years.

The Department of Corrections did not respond to multiple requests for comment on staffing trends.

‘How much of your soul can you afford to lose?’

Multiple corrections officers called rising vacancies predictable as new officers, attracted by competitive starting wages, discovered the demands of the work.

“It doesn’t surprise me one bit,” said a former officer who recently left a job in Waupun. He requested anonymity to avoid jeopardizing future employment in law enforcement. “They put a Band-Aid on the problem. They lured people in, thinking they were going to make more money. But the reality is the job hasn’t changed.” 

Even before the raises, it was not uncommon for officers to make upwards of $100,000 as they banked overtime pay while being forced to cover for open shifts. That pay came at a steep cost to work-life balance, said Rich Asleson, a correctional officer between 1997 and 2022, most at the former Supermax facility in Boscobel.

“It’s not a matter of needing more money. It’s a matter of how much of your soul can you afford to lose?” Asleson said. 

Additionally, officers say they feel added risks — whether reprimands, lawsuits or even criminal charges — as news media increasingly scrutinize their actions. Multiple deaths of Waupun prisoners, for instance, resulted in rare criminal charges against the warden and eight other staff members. Officers say they get little support, with a larger focus on penalties and firings than reforming conditions.  

More predictable hours, improved training practices and restored union protections would make the work more attractive, officers said.

“It’s one thing to do a job where you’re getting paid and you’re miserable,” the former Waupun officer said. “But can you imagine doing a job and feeling like you’re not even backed up by Madison? There’s people that are getting into trouble because the powers that be are scared, too. (Leaders) think if they’re ever called to the carpet, they can point to all the people they terminated.”

The officer said veterans, fearing reprisals, are increasingly choosing posts that separate themselves from prisoners and riskier work. They are less willing to train incoming officers due to turnover — seeing that time as wasted if new officers won’t stay long, he added. 

The Department of Corrections should improve training and retention by pairing veteran officers with rookies on shifts to show them the ropes — designating training specialists, he said. 

Waupun mayor: Prison guards go unappreciated

Waupun Mayor Rohn Bishop blames news media for recruiting and retention challenges, saying coverage disproportionately scrutinizes officers without recognizing their difficult jobs. 

“I’m the mayor of a town with three prisons within its city limits. Any time an inmate dies all the TV trucks show up and reporters put microphones in my face,” Bishop said. “But when an officer gets killed or hurt for just doing their job, almost no media pay attention. And I think there’s a burnout because of that.”  

Compared to other front-line workers, correctional officers often go unseen and unthanked, Bishop said. 

“You see firefighters. You see nurses. You see cops. You see these other front-line workers. You don’t see correctional officers because they walk on the other side of the wall. And I just think we don’t appreciate them,” Bishop said. 

Improving conditions for prisoners would simultaneously benefit correctional officers by boosting morale across prisons. That includes expanding the Earned Release Program, which offers pathways for early release to eligible prisoners with substance abuse issues who complete treatment and training — with the potential to ease overcrowding.  Evers’ initial budget proposal included provisions that would have expanded eligibility for the Earned Release Program. The final budget included about $2 million to support programs to reduce recidivism and ease reentry.  

“There needs to be a reimagining of what corrections are,” said the former Waupun officer. “It would make it easier for the inmates and the officers.”

Asleson agreed. “You can’t keep people locked away forever,” he said. “I think it’s about hope on both sides of the fence. If nobody has hope, it shows.” 

Wisconsin Watch reporter Sreejita Patra contributed reporting.

‘Band-Aid on the problem’: Past raises haven’t fully solved Wisconsin prison staffing problems is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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A Wisconsin Watch reader asks: The state expungement statute seems very strict. Does anyone actually get their record expunged? Is it easier to get a pardon or commutation from the governor? Why is it so difficult?

While it is certainly possible for people to get their records expunged, the laws and conditions surrounding expungement remain nuanced.

Expungement seals a person’s criminal records, meaning the public can no longer access them through court databases, such as Consolidated Court Automation Programs, or CCAP. 

Oftentimes, employers and landlords use court databases, such as CCAP, to review someone’s criminal records. State law prohibits discrimination unless the crime is materially related, like someone convicted of bank fraud applying to work at a bank. By removing a public criminal record, it removes the stigma that could lead to discrimination in housing and job opportunities. Employers are not allowed to use an expunged record against an applicant, even if the crime is materially related.

But obtaining expungement in Wisconsin is much more difficult than it appears. First, anyone requesting expungement must have been under 25 years old at the time of sentencing and not convicted of a violent felony. Only misdemeanors and Class H and I felonies qualify. The attorney must also request expungement at the time of sentencing; it cannot be requested after the fact.

“I’ve seen judges just disagree with expungement as a concept and never order it,” said Natalie Lewandowski, senior clinic supervisor at the Milwaukee Justice Center. “I think some judges don’t believe that people can be rehabilitated enough to deserve to be back in society and have that not be counted against them.”

Even district attorneys can take expungement off the table. In some cases, defense attorneys may not even know expungement exists and therefore won’t know to bring it up during a person’s trial.

As a new attorney, Lewandowski wasn’t aware of expungement until she was told minutes before the trial. It is not something that is often taught, and there is no handbook, she said. 

If the judge recommends expungement, a person must then meet all conditions of probation, including paying all financial obligations and supervision fees in full. The person cannot be convicted of a subsequent offense or violate any Department of Corrections rules.

But even with the expungement conditions laid out, the process is nuanced, and the success rate is low. 

For those who were found eligible for expungement at the time of sentencing, Lewandowski said a shocking number of them fail to get their case successfully expunged. 

In general, people believe that if they complete probation, they will have their case expunged. But they also must meet all the requirements of probation before they are discharged. 

“I’ve had to tell too many people that they can never get their case expunged because at the time of their discharge, they still owed $10 in supervision fees,” Lewandowski said. 

A probation office has to submit a form either notifying that the person completed conditions for expungement or failed to meet the conditions, with each condition laid out directly on the form.

It’s unclear how many people have their record expunged each year. The DOC does not keep data on how many cases meet the requirements for expungement, and court data is unreliable and not readily aggregated. Wisconsin Policy Forum estimates that around 2,000 people have their record expunged each year. 

Pardons, on the other hand, have a more clearly defined process. 

Requirements for a pardon include an old felony conviction and at least five years since the individual completed a sentence. To be granted a pardon, a person either applies to the Pardon Advisory Board, where a hearing is held on the pardon application, or the person can qualify for the expedited process in which the application is forwarded directly to the governor without a hearing. 

The applicants have to include certified court documents. The cost of copies of court documents is $1.25 per page and an additional $5 to get the document certified.

“The kicker is the application processing times, the time it takes from when you submit your application to get a hearing in front of the pardon board, where they’ll decide, is like two years right now,” Lewandowski said. “If you’re eligible for a pardon, it’s still something that you have to prove to the pardon board that you’re deserving of, so a lot of people don’t get pardoned.”

Most of the pardoned cases are low-level, non-violent offenses. Pardoning does not expunge the record or indicate innocence, but instead symbolizes forgiveness from the governor and restores certain rights — such as the right to serve on a jury, possess a firearm or hold a state or local office. 

Unlike expungement, pardons also depend on who is governor at the time of the request.

For example, Gov. Tony Evers has granted over 1,436 pardons as of April 2025 — the most ever — while former Gov. Scott Walker was adamantly against pardons during his time in office. 

For individuals seeking expungement or pardons, there are resources available. 

The Mobile Legal Clinic through the Milwaukee Justice Center includes information on expungement and pardon eligibility. There is also a guide on completing the pardon application for people who wish to do it independently. 

There have been attempts by lawmakers to decrease the barriers to expungement, such as eliminating the age requirement and allowing a person to petition the court for expungement after sentencing. 

Evers most recently requested these changes in the 2025-27 budget, but it was removed from discussion by Republicans in early May.

Does anyone actually get their record expunged in Wisconsin? is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.