Lincoln Hills, a detention facility the state had ordered closed by 2021. (Photo courtesy of the Wisconsin Department of Corrections)

When Randy Forsterling went to the Lincoln Hills juvenile prison at 16, he learned skills he still uses today, he told the Examiner. 

“I’m a machine operator,” Forsterling said. “I die cast, I make transmission casings and engine blocks for one of the largest corporations in the world. A lot of the metallurgy that I learned when I was in the foundry in Lincoln Hills, I use it now — 25 years later.” 

While Forsterling doesn’t believe Lincoln Hills still has a foundry, a Wisconsin initiative is aiming to better prepare incarcerated youth with disabilities for the workforce. 

The Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction released a statement about a collaboration with the Departments of Corrections and Workforce Development that is “the first of its kind in Wisconsin.” 

“By providing these young individuals with the guidance, education and opportunities they need, we empower them to break the cycle and contribute positively to society,” State Superintendent Jill Underly said in the statement. “Supporting these kids is not only a step toward healing, it is an investment in their future and will save future taxpayer expenses.” 

The U.S. Department of Education awarded the DPI a 5-year, $10 million grant. The program aims to help youth with disabilities transition from correctional facilities into their communities, according to a DPI statement released in September. Funds will also be used for work rehabilitation training and for dyslexia screening for all youth during intake at state correctional facilities.

The project provides three different levels of support, with some youth falling into more than one level. 

The program intends to support all justice-involved youth with disabilities and the adults who care about them, according to an abstract on the federal Rehabilitation Services Administration’s website. They will receive support through social media campaigns and an app-based reentry toolkit. This is the broadest level of support, for 8,000 participants, the abstract says. 

The second level will support a “targeted group” of students made up of Wisconsin youth under 18 in state correctional facilities. This level involves dyslexia screening and “related intervention services” and is for 1,500 participants. 

The smallest group will receive the highest level of care, or intensive supports, the abstract says. These are students “most marginalized at the intersection of disability and justice and, often, race.” They will receive care under a model that is “trauma-informed, community-based” and facilitated by mentors. This level is for 250 participants, who will begin receiving care while incarcerated. 

Young people have a higher risk of returning to incarceration in Wisconsin 

The Department of Public Instruction’s statement compared youth to older age groups for a three-year period after release, citing an August 2021 DOC report. The report found that for a 2016 cohort, 20-24 year-olds were reincarcerated about twice as often as people aged 45 or older. 

According to the DOC’s website, of 45 people aged 19 and younger released in 2020, 33 were reincarcerated in Wisconsin within three years after release due to a new sentence or a revocation. This data is based only on readmissions to DOC prisons, so it wouldn’t include reincarceration in another state. 

Forsterling said he committed crimes when he was 20 and went into adult prison at 21; he was released to extended supervision last year. He hopes the program will take the experiences of formerly incarcerated people and staff into account. 

Good job training is important for getting a good job, Forsterling said, which helps people avoid a desperate situation that may lead to a return to crime. 

“And that’s where mentors come in very handy,” he said. 

Forsterling said he received helpful mentoring at Lincoln Hills. He mentors and supports several friends who are still incarcerated. 

Cost to incarcerate per child rises as enrollment falls 

The cost of incarceration at Lincoln Hills and Copper Lake has “ballooned” to nearly $463,000 per child per year, as enrollment has “plummeted,” Wisconsin Watch and Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service reported last week. Fewer youth means fixed infrastructure and staffing costs are spread across fewer individuals. 

A new Department of Corrections budget request would nearly double that amount, they reported. That would raise the cost to 58 times what taxpayers spend on the average K-12 public school student. 

Wisconsin’s Division of Juvenile Corrections had a population of 81 people as of a monthly report for September, including 40 at Lincoln Hills and 14 at Copper Lake. The campus was designed for more than 500 youth, the news organizations reported. 

The juvenile prisons, which have been troubled for many years and are slated for closure, received renewed scrutiny after youth counselor Corey Proulx died from injuries received in an assault in late June. Lawmakers on the 2023 Senate Committee on Judiciary and Public Safety heard testimony about safety concerns at a hearing in August. 

The DOC is under a court-ordered consent decree mandating changes at Lincoln Hills and Copper Lake after a 2018 lawsuit challenged practices such as the use of pepper spray and punitive solitary confinement. 

The DPI received the grant to assist minors with disabilities as part of the U.S. Department of Education’s Disability Innovation Fund program. The program seeks to ensure people with disabilities receive “in-demand, good-paying jobs.” Out of over 800 organizations, Wisconsin was one of 27 projects to receive the grant.

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