The Journey to Justice Bus at Madison Christian Community Church on Sunday, Oct. 12. | Photo by Frank Zufall/Wisconsin Examiner

Solitary confinement, the practice of putting someone in isolation in a small cell, is not a topic you expect to hear discussed at church on Sunday.

But on Oct. 12, at the Madison Christian Community, was a stop of the 18-city, nationwide Journey to Justice Bus Tour, that included two panel discussions focused on the topic, one with four state legislators, including two candidates for governor.

Visiting the Journey to Justice bus, standing in a bathroom-sized solitary jail cell replica and hearing the real-life stories of those who had spent part of their lives confined in such spaces, visitors gained a visceral appreciation of the United Nations declaration that punishing people with more than 15 consecutive days in solitary is a form of  torture.

In the Hollywood presentation, the practice is reserved for hardened criminals, a safeguard against violence that’s necessary to keep good order and discipline.

But the reality is that small procedural violations, medical conditions, mental health crises sometimes even pregnancy are reasons people inside our prisons end up isolated for multiple days at a time.

Those who have experienced solitary confinement, otherwise known as restrictive housing or segregation, say it is traumatizing and even years after they’ve been released from prison, they are still reliving dark memories.

The Solitary and Conditions of Confinement Legislation panel at the church included four Democratic state legislators, including gubernatorial hopefuls  Sen. Kelda Roys and Rep. Francesca Hong, both of Madison. Roys, an attorney, has served on the Judiciary Public Safety Committee and worked on the Innocence Project when she was a law student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Milwaukee area Reps. Darrin Madison and Ryan Clancy also participated. Madison is a former organizer for Youth Justice Milwaukee and a member of the Correction Committee. Clancy sits on the Corrections Committee and has served on the Judiciary and Law Enforcement Committee.

Jen Ann Bauer, who spent five and a half years in prison and is currently serving the remainder of her sentence on community supervision said she was put in solitary confinement at least four times, with the longest lasting 90 days.

“When people hear you’re in solitary confinement, they think discipline, and it is so much more to the detriment of human beings,” she said. “It is isolating. It is defeating. It is control and it is torture. We are often placed in solitary confinement for protection or safety measures, minor and major rule violations, or simply for struggling with trauma and mental health. And let’s be honest, most incarcerated people are already trauma survivors. So I ask, how is isolating a wounded person somehow equal to safety? Solitary doesn’t lock a body in a cell. It locks a person inside their own mind. Time stops and pain does not.”

In solitary, Bauer said, she paced the floor just to remind herself that she still existed.

“Women survive through connection, through relationships, and so when you take away human contact, you take away the very thing that keeps us alive,” she said. “No one is built to handle 23 hours a day in a cell. That’s not discipline, that’s psychological torture.”

She added  that in solitary there is no interaction with outside family members, weakening relationships with children.

Observing  people who spent time in solitary,  she said, she saw that they changed for the worse.

“People with dreams come out of solitary unable to make eye contact, unable to trust and unable to believe in themselves or the world around them,” she said. “Solitary doesn’t confine a body. It suffocates the heart. It doesn’t correct behavior. It destroys identity. Solitary confinement causes psychological and emotional distress, more harm, more trauma. Solitary confinement is not a tool. It is a wound, and it is a wound the system continues to inflict on people and then blame them for bleeding.”

Ventae Parrow agreed with Bauer that solitary confinement  had no redeeming  impact on him in prison other than causing him to reflect on what he wanted for his life. He questioned who had the authority to determine whether one should be in solitary, and noted that many who experienced it came out angrier.

“And now you got angry humans coming out back to the community with the vengeance in their heart and their mind versus rehabilitation,” he said.

Tom Denk, an advocate with several WISDOM affiliates and a member of the Mental Health Action Partnership, moderated the panel. Denk, who had also spent time in solitary confinement, noted there is a high rate of mental illness among incarcerated residents, 45%, and the experience of being isolated exacerbates their conditions.

“The use of solitary confinement or restrictive housing is a correctional practice with significant ethical implications,” said Denk. “Prolonged isolation has been associated with severe psychological distress, including anxiety, depression and increased risk of self-harm. It also worsens existing mental health conditions and contributes to higher rates of recidivism.”

But Denk said solitary is often chosen as a method to address psychosis instead of treatment.

Talib Akbar, vice president of the non-profit advocacy group WISDOM, the organizer of the event, said any rule violation in prison could result in being sent to solitary. He said even being a couple of feet outside a cell door could result in being sent to solitary.

The Wisconsin Examiner recently heard from a former resident of Oshkosh Correctional Institution who said he was put in segregation after calling the nearby fire department to report concerns over the prison’s fire safety protocols. He claims that when the fire department called the prison’s facility manager, the manager became upset that the resident didn’t follow the chain of command, and the resident was placed in segregation.  

The panel also addressed the types of medical treatments residents receive in solitary.

Megan Hoffman Kolb whose father, Dean Hoffmann, died in solitary confinement at Waupun Correctional Institution in 2023,  said her father, who suffered from mental illness for 30 years, didn’t consistently get the right medication for the first 80 days in Waupun and never received a psych intake exam, which he was supposed to have received.

She said when her father recorded a credible threat from his cellmate, the prison’s response was to place him in solitary.

“In solitary, he was locked alone in a concrete cell, 24 hours a day, no books, no paper, no phone calls home, no medication,” she said. “The lights were left on constantly. Silence was deafening, broken only by the sounds of people crying out down the hallway. He told staff he was suicidal, hearing voices and couldn’t sleep. A correctional officer responded, ‘What do you want me to do about it?’”

She added, “Solitary confinement is not just isolation. It’s sensory deprivation. It’s a slow unraveling of a person’s mind in a small space. Days blur together, hope disappears for someone already struggling with mental illness, unbearable, and it’s not just emotional, it’s biological. Prolonged solitary confinement literally changes the brain.”

After nine days in solitary, Kolb said, her father took his own life by hanging himself from the cell door. She had viewed the video of his body being removed.

She said the cost of solitary is the trauma the family has experienced, along with the lawsuits, investigation and broken communities, and at the end of the day, taxpayers are being asked to pay for all of it.

“We are pouring millions into a system that tortures instead of treats,” she said, “and families like mine are left paying the ultimate price.”

Regarding the cost of operating solitary, Akbar noted that prisons have to assign more correctional officers (COs) for supervision there because they are considered more dangerous areas, which also raises the cost.

Rep. Clancy said he is against solitary and the ultimate goal should be to ban it outright, but a more attainable goal is proposed legislation that would restrict solitary to 10 days and require 15 hours a week of programming while in solitary to ensure there are visits by people.

“When you talk to people at the DOC and they say, ‘Well, we looked at your legislation, it is onerous. There’s no way we’re going to be able to do that.’ We’re like,‘Great, then don’t put people in solitary.’”

He added, “Please understand that the goal here is to end solitary, but it’s also to bring to people’s minds the real harm from it.”

Rep. Madison said he grew up with a friend who went to prison and was put in solitary, and when his friend got out he still struggled with isolation. One time, the friend wasn’t able to contact Madison and then attempted suicide but didn’t die.

“I was reminded that it is our correctional system that creates the conditions where folks, even when they are released into the community, feel locked up,” he said.

“We simply incarcerate too many people,” said Roys.  She added the goal should be to ensure public safety, not incarcerate people who don’t pose a threat. 

“If we actually want public safety, then we need to change the way we are thinking about that time when people are incarcerated, and it really should be that time that they are building their skills so that they are going to see that they can thrive, and that is why we need to be fostering relationships,” she said.

She also said there needs to be reform of the Truth-in-Sentencing law that is leading to longer prison stays without parole, resulting in more people in prison, and also reforming community supervision to change  a “gotcha” attitude — finding technical violations of those on extended supervision that would send them back to prison, instead of  focusing on helping people succeed in the community.

“If our parole officers, probation officers (POs) viewed their role as facilitating success, and they judged themselves not by how many people would get reincarcerated, but by how many people succeed and never have to be reincarcerated, that’s transformational, and you don’t necessarily need statutes to do that. You absolutely do need a strong will and strong leadership from the top director who says what we are doing.”

Hong said more could be done through executive orders and the governor’s clemency power to grant pardons. She also said she would like to invest more to hire social and mental health workers.

“The more helpers that we have in an institution, the fewer enforcers we need in that same institution,” Clancy said. 

“We have to stop saying that our jails and prisons are understaffed,” he added. “They are not understaffed. They are overpopulated.”

Clancy also said the DOC should pay mental health staff as much, or more, as it does  guards, to help hire and retain staff.

Women in solitary

During a panel discussion on women in solitary, Juli Bliefnick said that after she was assaulted inside  a prison while eating lunch, she was placed in solitary for six days, and during that time she had her monthly period, but male guards didn’t allow her to shower or have clean clothes. She had a similar experience in a county jail.

“That’s some of the most dehumanizing experiences of my whole life,” she said.

In another jail, Bliefnick witnessed a friend who was eight months pregnant put in a cell and stripped naked to look for drugs as the friend screamed.

“You can even move from that environment for decades, and you can still dream about it,” she said.  “You can still think about it like til this day, like I can hear jingling keys, and I’ll still get like, you know, like a fear of like a guard coming to, you know, harass me about something or another, and it’s a terrifying thing because I’m not there anymore. You know, your brain tricks you into thinking that you are. You carry it with you no matter how long you’ve been removed from it.”

Jessica Jacobs, who has not been incarcerated for eight years, still said she is traumatized by her time in solitary.

“Various times I’ve been incarcerated, being stuck in a room like that kind of did something different to me that maybe other people might not understand,” said Jacobs, “but so I had post traumatic stress disorder already, and then the amount of treatment that I had to suffer and go through while I was incarcerated has made it worse. And so I find myself today, sometimes where I get overwhelmed or stimulated, I know my nervous system is out of whack, where I feel like I have to close myself up into my room, and that’s kind of weird, you know, and I feel like I have to lock myself up, and I just don’t even try to figure out what it is. I know that it’s connected to that.”

Jacobs said she remembers being locked up with a 17-year-old girl who had been sex-trafficked by her father, and the girl was missing her babies and was distraught and wanted mental health services, but Jacobs cautioned against it, knowing that seeking those services often meant being sent to solitary or being restricted to a chair.

“And the next thing I know, they hauled her off and stuffed her in solitary confinement by herself,” said Jacobs. “And then came the big banging and the cries began.”

Yolanda Perkins said her mother was in prison for 17 years and spent time in solitary, and that time changed her mother permanently.

“My mother hasn’t been incarcerated in about 20 years, but she won’t go into a room by herself,” said Perkins, adding, “It affects how she grandparents her grandchildren. It affects her communication with them. It affects her communication with society. And so she still struggles.”

Bliefnick spoke about her work with the Ostara Initiative, working with doulas to end the practice of putting pregnant and postpartum women in solitary for protective custody.

“Punishing women who are in that condition is actually a common practice,” she said, “and I mean, can you think of anything worse than putting a woman who just had a baby and had it ripped away from [her getting] 24 hours in solitary confinement like that? That’s like a horrible practice to begin with. It’s like they treat them like cattle, and then to put them in solitary confinement for their protection is like the cruelest thing that you could possibly imagine.”

This story has been updated to fix the photo captions identifying Jen Ann Bauer and Megan Hoffman Kolb

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Wisconsin Department of Correction Secretary Jared Hoy was one of the keynote speakers at the EXPO gala.

Jared Hoy, Secretary of the Wisconsin Department of Corrections, offered something the crowd gathered to celebrate Ex-Incarcerated People Organizing (EXPO)  could relate to – a confession, followed by a commitment to do better.

“I don’t think we’ve done a very good job of engaging with people who are receiving our services, friends and family,” Hoy said in a speech at the EXPO gala Oct. 11 at the Monona Terrace Community and Convention Center in Madison, explaining the reason for conducting Friends and Family Forums between DOC management and the public.

Hoy, one of two keynote speakers during the “EXPOnential” gala, expressed the aim of overcoming challenges confronted by people caught up in the carceral system, including several honorees at the event who had served time in prison, some still on community supervision, including a woman working on becoming a certified peer counselor, a former Iraq war vet and practicing lawyer from Eau Claire, and a newly appointed official for Milwaukee.

EXPO is a non-profit advocacy group in Wisconsin that works to end mass incarceration, dismantle structural discrimination and restore formerly incarcerated people to community life. It’s largely staffed by the formerly incarcerated, including its executive director, Jerome Dillard, who explained the theme of the gala.

The term exponential, he said, is  “not just a gala name, but it’s a map of mercy and it’s an algorithm of potential. An exponent takes a small number and it raises it and turns it into two, into many and sparks into a skyline. And that’s what Wisconsin EXPO is. It’s organizing with formerly incarcerated neighbors to restore rights.”

Marianne Oleson, operations director for EXPO, noted the Beth Israel Center, a conservative synagogue in Madison, was receiving the Ally Organization of the Year recognition for its “shared love” with EXPO’s goals.

“Beth Israel has opened their doors so that we can gather, learn and share our truth with the community, but their generosity extends far beyond the walls of their synagogue,” said Oleson. “They have opened their homes and they have opened their hearts to us. They share their wisdom, compassion, creativity. in so many ways that remind us what true allyship looks like. They give our state residents rides, share the incredible gifts of art, and they bring us homemade lasagna.”

Deandrea “Dee” Hardman received the Woman of the Year recognition. Hardman said before going to prison she had made many bad decisions, living on the streets, surrounded by people who took advantage of her, and burning bridges with people in her life, so that when she left the chaos of her life for prison, she actually felt free.

“Going to prison disrupted my tormented cycle,” she said. “It was the first time I felt like I had an option to choose a different life. I had every opportunity that came my way to grow and change.”

In prison she became a certified welder and participated in work release, and even though she was surrounded by others who didn’t want to change their behavior from the street, she chose differently.

She said being able to reenter society in the EXPO Safe House helped her succeed outside of prison.

“I came home and worked extremely hard, but it was not solely my hard work that got me here — It was my sisters who supported me in the home and everyone who works within the organization,” she said. “For the first time in my life, I was leaving an institution not alone, but with an entire team of people behind me who wanted to help me and have absolutely nothing but the best for me.”

Hardman noted that she had just received her certification to become a peer support specialist and her aim was to share her experience with others to overcome the trauma of addiction and imprisonment.

Man of the Year David Carlson said Expo was one of the first organizations that helped him gain a “foothold” and “get traction in rebuilding my life after re-entry.”

His wife, Alicia Carlson, said her husband was identified by  the number “558672” when he was serving time in prison, but recently he had obtained another number, “1138342,” his state bar license number to practice law in Wisconsin.

“He stepped out of a system that had silenced him and set out on a mission to make people listen, and just as important to make sure that those around him, especially those who’ve been overlooked, blocked out, written off, were seen and heard too,” she said.

Of the two numbers identifying her husband, she said, one reminded him of what it was like to be silenced and the other “gives him a platform to make sure others never are.”

Carlson described the initiatives  her husband launched since he left prison, including a peer support agency with 80 mentors operating in 30 western Wisconsin counties

Carlson, who is now the Justice Forward Wisconsin Coalition coordinator, noted he was sentenced after serving a second tour in Iraq in the military. While in the Stanley Correctional Facility, he had the opportunity to leave early under the earned release program, but he was a self-described  “hothead” who probably was going to serve his whole sentence until a mentor, a fellow resident, saw his potential.

“Instead of seeing me as a dumb, young hothead, he really took me time to mentor me,” Carlson said. “I think mentorship is a key theme in my life and my success in what I have accomplished.”

The Justice Forward Wisconsin Coalition, he said, is a network of “justice-impacted individuals mentoring each other and advocating for each other.”

He said the work needs to be led by those who have experienced incarceration.

“But if you’ve never felt what it feels like to be by yourself in solitary confinement, if you’ve never felt what it feels like to be a teenager in solitary confinement missing your mom, if you’ve never felt what it feels like to be treated and dehumanized after a visit, strip searched, told to bend over and cough — like, these types of things never go away,” he said. “I’m 10 years out, and it never goes away. I’m a lawyer, and it never goes away… I think that it’s time that individuals that have those experiences lead the way, and that’s what this coalition is about.”

Adam Procell, the new director of Community Wellness and Safety for the City of Milwaukee, a position that aims to prevent and reduce violence through community partnerships, received the Ramiah Whiteside Changemaker recognition.

Procell said on the first day of his new position he went back to the site where 35 years earlier, at age 15, when he was a gang member, he had killed 18-year-old Robert Bruce.

“Day One of my job, I went and started at the scene of my crime because I knew I was going to have to ask others to lean into uncomfortable situations,” said Procell, “So I can’t ask the community to lean into uncomfortability unless I take my two feet to be the most uncomfortable place on the face of this Earth, which is where Robert lost his life.”

Procell said there was much pressure on him to succeed and he admitted that he needed help and encouragement. He said others should also be honest about their struggles, adding that “transformation is never born in isolation – It rises from connections.” 

“It wasn’t punishment that changed me. It was the love and hope that I got when I came into this community that made a huge difference, and it changed me,” Procell said.

Hoy talks about changing the DOC culture

During his keynote speech, Hoy noted that in one of his early training sessions at the DOC, he participated in an exercise for recruits in which they were asked whether they perceived themselves as different from those they would be supervising or the same, and he perceived himself as the same.

“And that always stuck with me, because fundamentally I don’t see myself at all different than any people that are being sentenced to Wisconsin DOC,”  he said. 

Hoy said he was challenged by Procell to talk to those receiving services from the DOC to see how effective those services were.

Hoy said he told his staff that they would sit in a room with members of the community to listen.

“It’s just to hear how our policies, how our decisions, impact the lives of not only the people that we care for, provide services to, but their friends and family, and it’s probably been one of the best things that I’ve done since I started,” he said.

Hoy thought the forums would be opportunities to educate the public as well as providing feedback to the DOC.

“I think we are benefiting more by just being there and listening and understanding that the folks across the table and in those small groups are human beings just like us,” he said. “After the first forum, I sat at a table, after just about everybody left with a warden, and I won’t out him, but he was in tears and talked about how much his decisions impact not just people in our care, but their families and their systems. That is culture change.”

Hoy said recommendations are being generated to change the operation of the DOC, but what is more fundamentally important to him is the department’s culture.

“If we don’t make sure to address the culture and how we treat people, making sure that everything we do is treating people with dignity and respect, it’s not going to matter if we bring the overhead time from 35 days on average down to 20 or whatever it might be,” he said.

He noted that those working in maximum security prisons and restrictive housing settings often experience aggression by residents, including bodily fluids thrown at correctional officers.

“I get a lot of pushback when I say, not letting anybody off the hook for it, but what are the conditions that we are creating that make it OK for a human being to do that to another human being?” He said. “That’s the culture that we have to address, and it’s not everywhere. I’m not up here to completely bash DOC. I mean, I’ll tell it like it is, but there are pockets [needing change].”

Hoy also asked for understanding on the difficulty of making changes in an organization with 10,000 staff, 70,000 in community supervision and over 23,000 incarcerated.

“There’s going to be challenges; there’s going to be gaps,” he said of the DOC. But he asked for understanding for the thousands of people who  work for  DOC “who  “are trying to help change lives.”

National effort

The last keynote speaker of the evening was David Ayala, executive director of the national organization of The Formerly Incarcerated Convicted People and Families Movement, a network of over 60 organizations.

Ayala talked about the work of EXPO as part of a national movement that centers leadership by the people directly affected by the carceral system, narrative story-telling,  fighting for systemic change and creating infrastructure for reentry.

He stressed the importance of telling success stories like Carlson’s journey to obtaining his law degree.

“We need to lift up stories like that,” he said, “… there are many Davids across this country.”

Ayala encouraged EXPO to work across state lines with similar organizations.

“You’re not alone,” he told the group.  “You are part of a rich, resilient national web — a movement that believes freedom is not just a word, but a living horizon where every person returning home is met with care, dignity, and possibilities.”

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The Palmyra police department is the first municipal department in Wisconsin to sign a 287(g) agreement with the federal Immigration Customs Enforcement agency. | Photo via Palmyra Public Safety Department official website

A village police department in southeastern Wisconsin has pursued a type of 287(g) agreement with federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) that is not held by any other agency in the state.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin criticized the Palmyra Police Department in Jefferson County, saying it is “partnering hand in glove with ICE to carry out this regime’s plan to deport our immigrant neighbors and loved ones.” 

In a statement to the Examiner, interim police chief Paul Blount said the department’s focus is on criminals who threaten public safety and that this is “not a blanket immigration enforcement program.” Blount was not immediately available for an interview. 

“If we find out that we have to participate in that aspect of it, where we’re actually going out, actively enforcing immigration policy and procedure and door to door, looking for undocumented individuals, then I would go on record on saying that we won’t participate in that,” Blount said, according to WISN 12 News. 

He said that the agreement could be what keeps a local police department in the village, due to financial challenges, according to WISN 12 News. He also said there is a $100,000 incentive for the first arrest of an undocumented person that has been involved in a crime or is wanted, and $7,500 for each subsequent arrest. 

According to WISN 12 News, Blount said that if the federal government approves the agreement, he would not move forward without approval from the village board. ICE’s online list currently shows Palmyra as a participating agency and includes Monday, Sept. 22 as the date of signature. 

The Task Force Model serves as a “force multiplier,” according to ICE. It allows officers to enforce limited immigration authority while performing routine police duties, such as identifying a person who is not a U.S. citizen or national during a driving under the influence stop and sharing information directly with ICE. Agencies can carry out immigration enforcement activities under ICE supervision and oversight. 

The American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin said the department is “even taking it a step further than other agencies, instituting the most aggressive 287(g) model that gives officers the green light to stop people they think might be immigrants on the street, question them about their citizenship status, and even take them into custody.”

The 287(g) program allows a local law enforcement agency to enforce certain aspects of U.S. immigration law. According to ICE’s online list,  Palmyra is the only police department in the state with a 287(g) agreement. There are 13 Wisconsin counties with a sheriff’s department partnering with ICE. These partnerships use the warrant service officer model or jail enforcement model, which are focused on local jails. 

In the statement to the Examiner, Blount said that if the program is approved, it would allow officers to work in closer partnership with federal authorities. He said officers would gain access to databases and resources that help investigations and help combat serious crimes, such as narcotics trafficking and human trafficking. 

“This is a tool, not a blanket immigration enforcement program,” Blount said. “Our focus is on criminals who threaten public safety — not law-abiding residents. The core mission of our department remains unchanged: responding to emergencies, enforcing traffic safety, and preventing crime in our community.” 

The ACLU of Wisconsin also raised concern about racial profiling. Stateline reported that the task force agreements with ICE were discontinued in 2012 after a Department of Justice investigation found widespread racial profiling and other discrimination in an Arizona task force. 

“This program tears apart communities and instills fear, and we must reject it in Wisconsin and everywhere else,” the ACLU said. 

According to WISN 12 News, Blount said he will ensure there is a policy or procedure in place if the village does move forward so that residents “are protected from being profiled.” 

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