Wisconsin Secure Program Facility in Boscobel, a maximum security prison where the peer specialist program started. | Photo courtesy Wisconsin Department of Corrections

William Bowers is incarcerated at the Wisconsin Secure Program Facility in the city of Boscobel, in southwestern Wisconsin, a maximum security prison, where inmates’ behavior and activities are closely monitored. 

Bowers struggles with his mental health and self-harm, and is concerned about his safety. He said he has received help from a peer specialist. Through this state program, incarcerated people in Wisconsin are drawing on their personal experiences to mentor other prisoners. 

Bowers called his peer specialist a “miracle worker” who has “saved my life so many times.” He said the demand for peer specialists currently exceeds the number of specialists available and he thinks more staff should be better informed about the program. 

If he’s in a crisis and wants to see his peer specialist, Bowers said, he can press a button in his cell and make the request. If he is able to see the specialist, they’ll go to a separate room and talk. He also has a scheduled meeting with his peer specialist each week.

He said that his peer specialist has been more helpful for him than the psychological services at the prison and he wishes to be transferred to the Wisconsin Resource Center. The facility treats people incarcerated in state prisons who need specialized mental health services. So far, prison authorities have not agreed to his request.

Certified peer specialists have personal experience with a range of issues including addiction, recovery and mental illness, and have been trained and certified by the state to use that experience to mentor others. 

Since 2010, 1,500 peer specialists have been certified by the state of Wisconsin. After completing their training, peer specialists work alongside clinicians — psychiatrists, psychologists, therapists, and counselors — helping their clients or “peers” move toward recovery from addiction and function without criminal violations. 

Over 100 specialists are incarcerated people who mentor other prisoners, as of August 2023. 

The Wisconsin Peer Specialist Employment Initiative is a service of the organization Access to Independence, funded by a grant from the Wisconsin Department of Health Services. The organization provides 52 hours of training, according to Gaochi Vang, the peer specialist program manager for Access to Independence. She said she thinks peer specialists in prison take a little under 48 hours of training due to the schedule and the needs of the Wisconsin Department of Corrections (DOC). Peer specialists must get continuing education and apply for recertification after two years. 

“We’ve had countless feedback from agencies and employers and organizations just saying, ‘Wow, our clients are opening up to the certified peer specialist more than the therapist or the social worker,’ and it’s just because they have that connection of having that lived experience,” Vang said. 

Vang said peer specialists “learn to decenter themselves so that they can support another person, while also knowing when it is appropriate or when it is necessary to share their lived experience.”

A year-end report from Stanley Correctional Institution noted that in one of its housing facilities, Unit 3, five  certified peer specialists work with 25 incarcerated peers. 

A report from Dodge Correctional Institution stated that so far in 2024, 14 certified peer specialists had offered their peers 12,103 sessions. On 138 occasions, the prison staff requested a peer specialist to deescalate a situation or meet a peer in crisis. 

Kenya Bright, from the Bureau of Prevention of Treatment and Recovery for the Department of Health Services (DHS), explained what peer specialists do during a Dec. 19 Zoom meeting of the Wisconsin Council on Mental Health Criminal Justice Committee. 

A certified peers specialist, Bright said, “walks beside the individual who is struggling and help(s) them identify through their own lived experience ways that perhaps a person might work to grow in their recovery.”

In an August 2023 webinar hosted by Vang, Tracy Johnson and Allyson Eparvier, peer specialist co-directors for the DOC, talked about the DOC’s experience with the program in prisons beginning in 2017 at Wisconsin Secure Program Facility in Boscobel and at Oshkosh Correctional Institution, two maximum security prisons.

Johnson said in 2017, 10 men from Boscobel and eight from Oshkosh were screened and gathered in Boscobel for an intensive week of training.

“We covered everything in the curriculum,” said Johnson, “and we added more layers that apply to the Department of Correction.”

In 2019, women from the Taycheedah Correctional Institution, a women’s maximum- and medium-security prison, attended  training.

By 2023, Johnson said, 150 had taken the training while serving a prison sentence, and most had been certified.

Results of the peer specialist program

To receive the training, the potential peer specialist must meet certain criteria, Johnson said. These include having committed no major rule violations (such as using drugs or fighting) within the last year, having a positive work record within the facility and having adjusted to life within the facility. The specialist must go through an approval process, which includes the prison’s security threat group coordinator and the psychological services unit. 

“Our guys (peer specialists working at Dodge) are well equipped to deal with anxiety and depression, trauma and grief,” Eparvier said.  “We always have interpersonal issues with a cellmate. We have this phrase that we’ve coined, kind of called cell etiquette, and so they talk about how, if you’re not getting along with your cellmate, how to navigate that and so that you don’t end up getting in trouble or getting in a situation that where you could get a little riskier than normal. So they talk about how to navigate various types of situations. Same thing with staff — if they’re not getting along with staff on their unit, just how to navigate that.”

Eparvier said one peer specialist at Dodge sleeps with his shoes on so he is able to quickly leave his cell to help someone in crisis.

“These guys do wonders with individuals who have a history of self-harm,” said Eparvier. “They’re very, very compassionate and very patient and very understanding. And a lot of times, we find some really amazing success stories come out of some of the individuals who have a significant history of self-harm after they’ve been working with a [peer specialist]. They work on general self-improvement, release planning, goal setting. They’re always goal setting no matter what part of their incarceration they’re at.”

The peer specialists are paid $1 an hour — the maximum amount that incarcerated people make in DOC — for up to 40 hours per week.

Eparvier said a dissertation published in 2023 — “Effectiveness of the Certified Peer Specialist Program in Wisconsin” by Shelby Kottke-Weaver, University of Wisconsin-Madison — reveals peer specialists  working with peers has resulted in fewer misconduct reports, less time in restrictive housing and less recidivism.

The research paper, which collected data from 24 DOC institutions, found  “these results suggest overall positive effects of the [peer specialist] program for individuals who receive peer services and have far-reaching policy implications for the use of peer support in carceral settings.” 

“So individuals who work with a [peer specialist] while they’re in the Department of Corrections, when they get out, they are, it seems, better and more well equipped to deal with life out there,” Eparvier said. “That goal planning and that release planning and goal setting seems to be really sinking in and having a positive impact.”

Johnson said that often when peers are being released from prison, they want to work with another peer specialist  on the outside.

“We have a lot of peers releasing saying this has been the best thing I’ve ever done working with a peer specialist,” said Johnson, and she said many peers on the outside stay in touch with the specialist  they worked with.

Johnson said she receives regular email from a staff member commenting on how a peer specialist has made a difference in the life of other residents and in the lives of staff members.

Like Bowers, Ronald Dennis is incarcerated at the Wisconsin Secure Program Facility in Boscobel. He has been in prison since 1975 and has a life sentence, he told the Examiner over the phone. 

“I’ve had a real violent past in prison,” Dennis said. “I’ve stabbed guards, stabbed inmates.”

Dennis said he became involved with the Aryan Brotherhood, a white supremacist criminal gang that operates inside and outside of prisons. He said that gang membership lasts for life, but that he is no longer actively involved with the gang’s activities. 

“As I got older I learned to deal with people on a individual basis, not on whatever race they are,” he said. “I try to get along with everyone.”

Dennis said he’s been in Wisconsin since 2002 and hasn’t received a disciplinary report for violence in over two decades. More recently in his incarceration, he worked as a peer specialist, he said. 

Dennis said he uses his past to try to keep someone from going down the same path. Incarcerated people at Boscobel are more at ease talking to another incarcerated person than to a staff member, he said, adding that people he’s talked to have broken down and cried, and that he’s talked people out of hurting themselves or beating someone up.

Dennis said he lost his position because he received pornographic photos while in prison but continues to work with other incarcerated people. 

“I hear guys on the tier… [saying], ‘I’m going to beat this guy’s ass, or ‘I’m going to beat that guy’s ass,’ when we come out to rec,” Dennis said. “And if I know the guy, I’ll try to pull him aside and try to talk to him [and say]… ‘What if you get in the fight, you hit [him], he falls over, hits his head on the table and he dies. Now you’ve got a life sentence over some stupid stuff you don’t even got to fight for.’”

Connecting with people before they leave prison

Tamra Oman is the Peer Support Administrator at Ex-Incarcerated People Organizing (EXPO). She’s been involved in peer support work for over two decades. 

“So, I have the privilege of going back in and hopefully sharing hope and inviting people to really look at themselves and determine what they want for their life, and what’s it going to take,” Oman said. “And allow people to support them while they’re in the institution.” 

Oman prefers to develop contact with  incarcerated residents before they leave a correctional facility. 

“Our greatest desire would be to meet with people and connect with them and hear their hopes and dreams and then support them in developing a reentry plan that actually has a schedule to it,” she said, “Because it’s hard when you go from 24 hours a day of what you’re going to do, to then 24 hours a day of ‘I don’t know what to do,’ right?”

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Gov. Tony Evers at a press conference about his DOC budget proposal on Friday. Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner.

Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers wants to dedicate over $325 million of the state budget to updating aging correctional facilities. The plan he laid out Friday would end with the closure of Green Bay Correctional Institution in 2029 and involves spending more than $40 million for policies meant to help stabilize the prison population.

Serious problems have plagued the state’s correctional facilities for many years, exacerbated by aging facilities that lack adequate space for the number of incarcerated people. 

While the state’s correctional facilities have the capacity to house 17,638 people, there are 23,074 people being held in facilities across the state. The total population is expected to grow to 24,000 people by the end of the biennium. 

Evers said Wisconsin needs to do the work to move its correctional operations into the 21st century and help ease some of the challenges. 

“Wisconsin spends more on corrections than most states, including all of our Midwest neighbors,” Evers said. “That’s because, unlike red and blue states across the country, Wisconsin has refused to move our approach to corrections into the 21st century. The bottom line is that this trajectory is not sustainable.” 

“We can address long-term staffing challenges, expand workforce training, implement evidence-based practices that reduce recidivism and save taxpayer dollars all while — most importantly — improving public safety,” Evers said. 

Evers said he was planning to speak with Republican lawmakers about the plan in the near future and called for their support.

On Tuesday evening, Evers will deliver his full budget address. After he submits his budget proposal to the Legislature, lawmakers will write their own version that will go to Evers for final approval. 

‘Stabilize’ population

The first part of Evers’ correctional plan focuses on “stabilizing” the state’s growing prison population through policy changes meant to help limit recidivism. 

“About 90% of the people incarcerated will be released back into our communities, so we must reduce the likelihood that people will commit another crime when they’re out in our communities,” Evers said. “Our work to prevent people from reoffending must start long before they ever leave our correctional institutions.” 

He proposes expanding access to workforce training and substance use treatment for people who have 48 months or less left in their sentences for nonviolent offenses. Evers said the programs will help support people to reenter the workforce once they are out of prison and to help people who are working to overcome drug and alcohol use disorders.

The changes to the Earned Release Program would help support about 2,500 people.

To support the policy changes, Evers also wants to dedicate $3.7 million in the budget to pay  progression for social workers and treatment specialists.

In addition, Evers’ budget proposal will include $8.9 million for expanding the Alternatives to Revocation Program, $1 million for community supervision regional coaches to help the high number of people with substance use recovery needs, $3.1 million to expand the number of community corrections supportive housing beds for people with hardships, $10.7 million for cost of living increases for the division of community corrections and reentry unit, $1.9 million for 13 new DOC positions and $9.6 million for pay progression and parity for probation and parole agents and correctional field supervisors.

Modernizing correctional facilities

The largest allocation in the plan would got to  the “domino” plan to update the state’s correctional facilities — a plan that ends in the closure of the Green Bay Correctional Institution by 2029.

“In order for my plan to work, several crucial steps must happen, and they must happen together,” Evers said.

“There cannot be delays or obstructions like we’ve seen with Lincoln Hills and Copper Lake,” he added. 

2017 Act 185 signed by Gov. Scott Walker, set a deadline to close the Lincoln Hills and Copper Lake youth correctional facilities  in January 2021.  Evers later extended that to July 2021, but that deadline also passed and plans to close the facilities have continued to get pushed back. 

 Evers plan would convert the youth facilities into a 500-bed medium security facility for adult males.

Under the plan, a Type I facility would be completed in Dane County at the cost of $168 million to house 32 male and 8 female youths. 

The plan also calls for using $245.3 million to update Waupun Correctional Institution, the state’s oldest prison, built in 1851. Cell halls would be demolished and some areas of the prison would be remodeled to create vocational programming.

A new “vocational village” at Waupun would be modeled on efforts undertaken in Louisiana and Missouri. Under the plan, it would be prepared to open by 2031. 

The plan would also have Stanley Correctional Institution converted into a maximum security facility with the ability to “flex” as a medium security facility. 

Green Bay Correctional Facility would close by 2029 at a cost of $6.3 million. 

According to the Evers administration, the plan opts to close the Green Bay facility over the Waupun facility because there is local support for closing the Green Bay facility and because it will  cost less to update the Waupun facility. 

The plan also includes expanding Sanger B. Powers Correctional Center located in Outagamie County by 200 beds. Employees at the Green Bay facility would have the option of transferring to the Sanger Powers facility. 

In addition, John Burke Correctional Center would be converted from an adult male to an adult female facility with 300 beds.

“We need Republican lawmakers to get onboard with this plan,” Evers said. “There is not an alternative to my plan that is safer, faster and cheaper… My plan is the most cost effective for taxpayers. It’s the most efficient for alleviating the challenges facing our correctional institutions.” 

DOC Secretary Jared Hoy said during the press conference Evers’ plan is exciting because it is “a comprehensive and cohesive plan to address long standing issues within our correctional system while investing taxpayer dollars wisely.” 

“The effort comes down to safety in our institutions and our communities,” Hoy said.

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The Robert Ellsworth Correctional Facility, a women's prison in Wisconsin. | Photo via Wisconsin Department of Corrections

A Dane County judge sided with the Wisconsin ACLU after the nonprofit argued that eligible, incarcerated mothers must be able to receive programming and support for their relationships with their children under the age of 1.

At issue in the case is Wisconsin state statute 301.049, which creates a “mother-young child care program.” 

The law mandates that the Wisconsin Department of Corrections (DOC) “shall administer a mother-young child care program” allowing eligible women to retain physical custody of their children during participation in the program. 

Circuit Court Judge Stephen Ehlke said that the plaintiffs — two incarcerated mothers — had established “a clear right” to be considered for the program, according to the transcript of the oral ruling. 

The American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin expects to work with the DOC to determine a “realistic timeline” for the program’s implementation, the nonprofit said in a statement. 

“We are encouraged by this current ruling and hope the final judgment will also reflect the same sentiment – that the separation of families is one of the most debilitating and traumatizing aspects of the criminal legal system,” Ryan Cox, legal director at the ACLU of Wisconsin, stated. 

The ACLU’s initial complaint in June sought a writ of mandamus ordering the DOC to comply with the statute. While the plaintiffs asked for a “provisional” emergency order, Ehlke said he didn’t see how further proceedings would change anything and thought his order would be final. 

He asked the plaintiffs to draft an order that would fulfill their request for relief and said he would sign it once it had been reviewed by the counsel for the Department of Corrections.

Juli Bliefnick is the operations coordinator for FREE, a statewide nonprofit addressing the gender-specific issues of women’s incarceration and reentry. In a statement to the Examiner she said FREE was overjoyed by the ruling. 

“This is a crucial first step in reducing the harm caused by mother/infant separation during the most critical bonding period for mother and child, and the formative year after the baby is born,” Bliefnick said. “We hope this will open doors for collaboration between the Department of Corrections and other community organizations to ensure that incarcerated mothers and their babies receive dignified and compassionate care through this program.”

How did the judge rule?

Both sides agreed that a program was in place, but they disagreed over whether the DOC was required to provide programming for incarcerated mothers, Ehlke said, according to the transcript of the oral ruling. 

The statute says the DOC is required to provide the program for females who are prisoners “or” who are on probation, extended supervision or parole and who would be participating in the program as an alternative to revocation. 

Extended supervision is when an offender is released to the community under certain conditions. If a person commits a violation and their supervision is revoked, they will either be returned to court for sentencing or transported to a correctional institution. 

The ACLU of Wisconsin argued that the word “or” in the statute meant the DOC is supposed to provide the program for both of these groups, Ehlke said. The DOC argued that if the Legislature had meant to use the word “and,” it would have done so, he said. 

Ehlke said that if the statute used the word “and,” mothers would only be eligible for the program if they were in both groups at the same time, and that this would be impossible. For example, a person could not be incarcerated and on probation at the same time. In this way, wording the statute that way would be “nonsensical,” he said. 

Ehlke also said the Legislature “was presumably trying to help as many infants and mothers as it could, regardless of the mother’s status within DOC” when it passed the law. 

“Interpreting the statute as giving the DOC discretion to choose between these groups makes no sense given the purpose of the statute is presumably to help as many people as possible,” Ehlke said. 

Ehlke said that he understood there “is a financial difficulty, perhaps, from the DOC’s point of view” but that was an issue for the state Legislature. 

Who are the plaintiffs?

The plaintiffs in the case are Alyssa Puphal and Natasha Curtin-Weber, who are currently incarcerated at the Robert E. Ellsworth Correctional Center in Union Grove, WI, according to the DOC’s offender locator. 

Puphal gave birth to a son in August 2023, according to the complaint the ACLU published in June. Over the approximately 10 months between his birth and the filing of the complaint, Puphal had four visits with her son, about 12 to 15 hours in total. Her family lives too far away for regular in-person visits, the complaint said. 

As of June, Curtin-Weber was pregnant and expected to give birth in July. 

What programming does DOC already provide?

A Department of Corrections spokesperson told Wisconsin Public Radio last June that  Wisconsin offers programming to support mothers out on parole, probation or extended supervision. 

The programming uses three contractors: ARC Maternal and Infant Program in Madison, Bethany Recovery Center in Oconomowoc and Meta House in Milwaukee, WPR reported. It uses the contractors to help women avoid recidivism through treatment of substance abuse disorder and other issues. 

The DOC said 224 women had participated over the previous year, WPR reported in June. 

What is the program described in the statute? 

The ACLU’s complaint said the law in question was enacted in 1991. To enter the program, incarcerated mothers must provide consent, receive the department’s approval and be either pregnant or have a child under 1 year old, the statute says. 

The statute lists the following directives for the program:

• Place program participants in the least restrictive placement consistent with community safety and correctional needs and objectives.
• Provide a stable, safe and stimulating environment for each child participating in the program.
• Provide program services with the goal of achieving a stable relationship between each mother and her child during and after participation in the program.
• Prepare each mother to be able to live in a safe, lawful and stable manner in the community upon parole, extended supervision or discharge.

The Wisconsin Department of Corrections did not respond to requests for comment.

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Green Bay Correctional Institution | Photo by Andrew Kennard/Wisconsin Examiner

A consulting and management firm will begin on-site visits to Wisconsin prisons next week, the next step in a third-party review of the state’s prison system. 

Falcon Correctional and Community Services, Inc. “exists to elevate mental health services in jails and prisons” for incarcerated Americans with mental illness, according to the firm’s website. Amidst concerns over the conditions of confinement in state facilities, Falcon is studying some aspects of life inside Wisconsin prisons to find areas for improvement. 

The Wisconsin Department of Corrections recognized the value of a third party reviewing policies and procedures and providing recommendations for improvement, DOC Secretary Jared Hoy said in a July 9 letter to lawmakers on Wisconsin’s 2023 Assembly Committee on Corrections. 

On the same day, prison reform advocates spoke in front of the committee, giving testimony about solitary confinement and other issues. The Department of Corrections has received scrutiny after deaths of incarcerated people and criminal charges against staff at Waupun Correctional Institution.

“This is just one step of many that we at the department are taking to make improvements at our facilities to help keep staff safe and improve the conditions for those in our care,” Hoy said of the review in the letter. 

Falcon teams have been deployed to review restrictive housing practices in at least four states, according to the firm’s proposal: Washington, Connecticut, Louisiana and Massachusetts. 

Bringing in Falcon is an acknowledgement of serious problems in the department, said Mark Rice, the transformational justice campaign coordinator at the nonprofit WISDOM. Rice hopes the study will lead to change, but he also thinks the department should make improvements based on information that is already available.

“Solitary confinement is being used far too frequently,” Rice said. “People have been dying. People have not been able to get access to medications that they need in some situations. People have not had adequate health care during emergency situations. And so certainly [there have] been several deaths that were preventable.”

What will Falcon do? 

In November, the DOC and Falcon signed a contract. The Examiner received the contract and accompanying documents through public records requests to the DOC.

The partnership includes a comprehensive study of the Division of Adult Institutions’ health care program, behavioral health program, correctional practices and restrictive housing practices. 

The study was projected to take six months, the documents say, with a cost of about half a million dollars. 

Currently, the Falcon team is on the fourth stage of the study, according to Beth Hardtke, director of communications for the Department of Corrections. This involves beginning group workshops, according to the contract documents. 

The fifth stage is titled “Onsite Visits and Facility Studies,” and it is scheduled for weeks eight through ten of the partnership. The Falcon team will begin on-site visits next week, Hardtke said. 

Some priorities listed in the plan focus directly on incarcerated people. These include timely emergency treatment, access to and administration of necessary medication, psychiatric services and access to recreation. 

Other priorities are focused on employees. These include facility leadership culture, staff wellness and safety and behavioral health and health care staffing. 

The second part of the partnership is labeled as optional. It involves technical assistance for implementing the study recommendations and includes Falcon measuring the impact of the changes after 30, 90 and 180 days. 

Hardtke said the DOC plans to release recommendations from Falcon after the project concludes.

One section of the proposal covers six areas of focus for Falcon’s experts. It tasks Falcon’s experts with conducting analyses related to training, recruitment, culture and retention of staff, as well as restrictive housing and initiatives aiming  to reform it. 

One of the other areas of focus is a report with “actionable recommendations and a roadmap for addressing behavioral health, health care and correctional practices, including restrictive housing, and their impact on [incarcerated people] and staff.” 

The report should include a timeline for execution and proposed ways to evaluate and adjust the implementation of the recommendations, the section says.  

WIDOC_Falcon_Scope_Proposal_8.22.24

Analyzing restrictive housing

In a section about restrictive housing, the proposal says the DOC is “engaged in an agency-wide culture change” to more rehabilitative practices. Restrictive housing includes disciplinary separation — when an incarcerated person has committed a violation. It also includes instances when staff remove an incarcerated person from the general population for reasons such as their own safety.

The state limits when incarcerated people in disciplinary separation can leave their cells. They may do so “as needed for urgent medical or psychological attention, showers, visits, recreation and emergencies endangering their safety in the cell or other reasons as authorized by the warden.” 

For November 2024, 3.4% of incarcerated people tracked were in disciplinary separation, according to the DOC. 

Also for November, the average sentence to disciplinary separation was 37.4 days, while the average time spent there was 23.6 days. The average time spent in disciplinary separation declined overall from January to November.. 

The most common reasons for disciplinary separation are disobeying orders, disruptive conduct, disrespect, threats and assault, according to DOC data from November 2019 to November 2024.

Advocates have called for reform of solitary confinement in Wisconsin, which can be defined as confining a prisoner for 22 or more hours a day without meaningful human contact. In 2011, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on torture said indefinite and prolonged solitary confinement in excess of 15 days should be prohibited, citing the mental damage caused by social isolation. 

The Falcon team hopes  “to reduce reliance on restrictive housing as a tool.” The group’s analysis will cover prevention of restrictive housing when possible and alternatives and modifications to restrictive housing time. It will also focus on the return of incarcerated people to other housing after leaving restrictive housing. 

To substantially decrease reliance on restrictive housing, “the scope of systemic change must reach far beyond the restrictive housing areas,” the proposal says. 

Advocates want to see reform, independent oversight 

When the Examiner shared the contract documents with WISDOM’s Mark Rice, the focus on solitary confinement reform drew his attention. He hopes the publication of a report will lead to the end of long-term solitary confinement in Wisconsin. 

“We’ve really been leading the charge on that issue for over a decade, and have seen not a huge amount of progress, not the progress that we want to see,” Rice said. 

Susan Franzen told the Examiner that she’s encouraged by the focus on behavioral health and restrictive housing. Franzen is the director of operations for Ladies of SCI, another prison reform advocacy group. She said she’d like to see incarcerated people have the opportunity to share what it’s like trying to get mental health care in prison.

“They mention that they’re going to partner with all relevant stakeholders [for the study],” Franzen said. “But there is no mention of speaking to or engaging with inmates or their family members.” 

Falcon experts will gather information through staff interviews, workshops, site visits and existing documents, forms and data, according to the  proposal document. The Falcon Method of analysis “relies heavily” on interpreting quantifiable data instead of using “only subjective testimonies,” the proposal states.

“DOC values input from friends and family and while they won’t be engaging directly with Falcon consultants the department is certainly considering their viewpoints as leadership makes decisions on this project,” Hardtke said. 

The consultants will continue to interact with “a wide variety of staff” throughout the DOC and during the site visits, she said.

Franzen pointed to unfilled positions for DOC psychological services, where the agency has a vacancy rate of 21.6%. She hopes the Falcon partnership will benefit incarcerated people who need psychological services. 

In October, the Examiner reported on the Falcon partnership and the idea of creating an independent ombudsman to increase oversight of the prison system. Sen. Van Wanggaard (R-Racine), chair of the 2025 Committee on Judiciary and Public Safety, and Rep. Jerry O’Connor (R-Fond Du Lac), vice chair of the 2025 Assembly Committee on Corrections, weighed in.

Rice doesn’t see the Falcon partnership as a substitute for independent oversight, but he thinks “lives can be saved” if it leads to improvements in the prison system. 

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Schools, the environment, health, criminal justice and the economy — those were some of the topics in the news in 2024. Here is a selection of the year’s most important stories and how they were covered in the Wisconsin Examiner.

A landmark election year

Wisconsin marked more than one milestone in the 2024 election.

The state helped return Republican former President Donald Trump to the White House — the second president in history to be elected to two non-consecutive terms and the first to win the Oval Office with a felony conviction.

Despite Trump’s victory, Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin eked out a third term, as Erik Gunn reported, besting her Republican challenger, banker Eric Hovde, by close to the same 29,000-vote margin by which the Democratic presidential contender, Vice President Kamala Harris, lost in the state.

With newly drawn districts ordered by the Wisconsin Supreme Court that ended the lopsided gerrymandered control of the Legislature Republicans have commanded since 2011, Democrats ended a Republican super-majority in the state Senate and gained seats in the Assembly. While still in the minority, Democrats hoped the outcome would help them make some deals and advance their agenda in the Capitol, while Republicans indicated they don’t expect their priorities to change.

Baldwin’s victory, the strong Democratic showing in the Legislature and Harris’ narrow loss in Wisconsin have helped buoy the state’s Democratic Party chair, Ben Wikler in his campaign to lead the national Democratic Party.

Criminal justice

In mid-December Wisconsin’s capital city and the rest of the state were shocked after a 15-year-old student at Abundant Life Christian School in Madison shot and killed a fellow student and a teacher and wounded a half-dozen others at the private school before killing herself. “I’m feeling a little dismayed now, so close to Christmas, every child, every person in that building is a victim and will be a victim forever,” said Madison Police Chief Shon Barnes hours after the deaths. Henry Redman reported from the scene.

Republicans chose Milwaukee for their national nominating convention as part of their campaign to return Wisconsin to the GOP column. There, they were confronted with raucous but peaceful protests. The whole Examiner team was there, reporting both inside and outside the convention.

Fears of violence were largely unrealized with one grim exception: Police from Columbus, Ohio, who were among thousands from out of state deployed to keep order at the convention, shot and killed an unhoused man with two knives who was fighting with another man in a local park that had become a camping site for homeless people. The Examiner’s Isiah Holmes and Henry Redman broke the story.

Supported by a grant from the Public Welfare Foundation, the Wisconsin Examiner expanded its coverage of the state’s criminal justice system in 2024, with reporters Isiah Holmes, Henry Redman, Frank Zufall and Andrew Kennard probing police misconduct, the state Department of Corrections and law enforcement surveillance practices.

Immigration

Echoing his first presidential run eight years ago, Trump centered his 2024 campaign on immigration and undocumented migrants in the U.S., with false claims of widespread criminal activity among immigrants and promising mass deportations if elected.

The Examiner examined the much more sober reality for undocumented immigrants our state’s economy depends on, some of whom are trafficked and abused. Editor Ruth Conniff wrote about labor trafficking on Wisconsin farms, and also took a closer look at  how a large immigrant presence in  communities such as Whitewater has become distorted by right-wing demagoguery.

Reproductive rights

Reproductive health care and the 2022 U.S. Supreme Court decision overturning a national right to abortion enshrined  half a century ago in Roe v. Wade loomed large in 2024. Reporter Baylor Spears followed the issue in Wisconsin.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court heard arguments late in the year over whether an 1849 Wisconsin law was a widespread ban on elective abortion or actually only applied to feticide.

And while Democrats generally ran on restoring abortion rights, the issue was most prominent  in the 8th Congressional District, where Democratic ob/gyn Dr. Kristin Lyerly included it as part of her broader campaign but lost to Republican Tony Wied.

Environment

American Stewards of Liberty, an out-of-state right-wing group that opposes public land use conservation policies, made significant incursions into Wisconsin policymaking, including influencing Oneida County’s rewrite of its comprehensive plan. Reporter Henry Redman broke the story.

Redman covered a variety of pressing environmental stories throughout the year,  including a  Wisconsin initiative to address PFAS contamination in the state, including $125 million invested from the state budget, ran aground as the administration of Democratic Gov. Tony Evers and Republican leaders in the Legislature deadlocked on how to move forward.

Throughout the year, local residents and government leaders grappled with how to address the spread of concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) in their communities

Economy

Political analysts have said that a spike in the prices for gas, groceries and other goods in the first couple of years of President Joe Biden’s term played a key role in the Democrats’ election-year losses, notwithstanding that inflation had cooled in most of 2024.

But the Biden administration’s hefty investments in the economy — funding technology innovation, boosting clean energy, expanding broadband access, replacing lead water pipes and supporting unions — appeared to get less traction with voters.

Erik Gunn reported on the economy throughout the year and along with other staff members continues to do so as new economic concerns hover on the horizon. Those range from persistent housing problems covered by Isiah Holmes to strains on the child care infrastructure, a significant challenge for families as well as employers who have struggled to fill job openings.

Education

In a large majority of referendum votes held in the spring and fall, voters agreed to raise their property taxes to increase funding for their local public school districts. The trend sets the stage for what could be a contentious state budget battle in 2025 as public school advocates push for more support from the state.

After Milwaukee Public Schools voters narrowly approved their district’s $252 million referendum request in the spring, however, the state Department of Public Instruction announced it was holding back some of the district’s state funds because MPS had failed to file required financial reports on time. District Superintendent Keith Posley, resigned under fire, and Gov. Tony Evers ordered an audit of the district.

Spears, who covers the education beat for the Examiner, reported on Evers and DPI, who spent much of 2024 at odds with Republican lawmakers who refused to  release money budgeted for new reading programs in Wisconsin schools.

Spears also did significant reporting into the use of seclusion and restraint policies in student discipline, practices that are supposed to be a last resort but remain widespread, according to advocates and families of children — frequently autistic children — who are subjected to these disciplinary measures.

Health

As COVID-19 remains an ongoing health concern, old respiratory illnesses such as pertussis have been on the rebound in Wisconsin in 2024, while new ones — most notably avian influenza — lurk around the corner. Erik Gunn reports that  a contributing factor has been a decline in vaccination rates, a trend that state health officials have been urging Wisconsinites to take seriously and reverse.

The importance of vaccination was highlighted in May when Wisconsin reinstituted a meningitis vaccination requirement that had been temporarily blocked by state lawmakers. A Fort Atkinson mother told Gunn the story of why she has for decades been urging the adoption of the meningitis vaccine requirement.

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Green Bay Correctional Institution | Photo by Andrew Kennard

Amidst a staffing crisis that worsened living conditions in Wisconsin prisons, the state gave corrections officers a large raise.  

The number of vacant positions for correctional officers and sergeants across adult institutions has declined over 20% from a peak of 35%. But there’s still a struggle with working conditions, former correctional officer Joe Verdegan said. 

“By its nature, with the clientele you have there, it’s a very toxic environment,” said Verdegan, who worked at Green Bay Correctional Institution from 1994 to 2020. “The toxic part of it will never change, but the problem is, you need veteran staff that can deal with it.” 

Wisconsin’s Act 10, passed in 2011, excluded many government workers from collective bargaining for anything other than inflationary increases to base wages. The law led to an exodus of veteran staff concerned about what might happen to their pensions, Verdegan wrote in a 2020 book about GBCI.

Act 10 grouped some workers together as public safety employees and others as general employees. Public safety employees’ collective bargaining rights were largely unchanged, while those of general employees were severely curtailed. 

Dane County Judge Jacob Frost struck down the law’s collective bargaining restriction, ruling that the Wisconsin Legislature didn’t have a defensible reason for excluding some public safety workers from the public safety group. 

On Wednesday, Frost put his order on hold, granting a temporary stay on his Dec 2 ruling while he considers written arguments that he should keep the ruling on hold while the Wisconsin Legislature appeals it.

Frost’s December 2 decision essentially confirmed a previous ruling released in July, in which he wrote that Act 10 violated the equal protection clause of the Wisconsin Constitution. Previous legal challenges failed to overturn the law. 

Opponents of the law celebrated what the decision might mean for employees’ power in the workplace, while supporters said Act 10 saved billions of dollars. Former Gov. Scott Walker, who signed Act 10 into law, called the decision “brazen political activism” and “an early Christmas present for the big government special interests.”

The law’s effect on retirement contributions led to an increased cost for public employees and government savings. Since employees were responsible for a larger share of pension contributions, state and local governments saved nearly $5.2 billion over the seven-year period from 2011 to 2017, according to a 2020 report from the Wisconsin Policy Forum. 

The judge didn’t strike down Act 10 provisions that changed the rules for employees’ retirement contributions and health insurance premiums, an attorney representing unions in the case told Wisconsin Watch. Those provisions don’t rely on the distinction between the public safety and general employee groups, he said. 

Frost’s ruling has been appealed, and it’s expected to go to the Wisconsin Supreme Court, Wisconsin Public Radio reported. Its fate might depend on an upcoming Wisconsin Supreme Court election and whether any justices recuse themselves. 

Frost didn’t find a legal problem with the Legislature treating the public safety group differently than the general employees group — for example, by providing them with benefits that would attract quality employees to jobs important for public safety. If teachers, administration or sanitation workers face labor unrest, their absence from work probably wouldn’t cause death or great harm, he wrote in the July ruling. 

Instead, Frost took issue with the Legislature’s decision to not include certain workers in the public safety group, including the Capitol Police, conservation wardens and correctional officers. 

Specifically referring to correctional officers, Frost wrote, “What greater threat is there to public safety than the escape of the persons that those in the public safety group arrested and brought to justice?” 

Wisconsin prisons have seen a staffing crisis, allegations of harassment 

After Act 10, GBCI staff had to contribute more to their pensions and paid higher health insurance premiums, Verdegan wrote in his book. 

“People were fleeing the prison to go drive truck, be bartenders, work in cheese factories, or even bag groceries at Woodman’s,” Verdegan wrote. 

Corrections officers were asked to put in more overtime around 2011 or 2012, former GBCI officer Jeff Hoffman told the Examiner in July. 

“From that time forward, it never got any better,” said Hoffman, who left GBCI in early 2023 after almost 23 years. “If you were there, you were going to work 16-hour shifts.” 

Staffing vacancies for correctional officers and sergeants have declined substantially from a peak of 35% in August 2023 to the current 12.9% vacancy rate.

In the DOC’s 2022 Climate and Engagement survey, over half of security staff expressed at least some disagreement with the idea that their pay was fair relative to the duties they performed. Over half said that if they left DOC, it would be because of their salary and/or benefits. 

These responses were given before Wisconsin implemented a large pay raise for corrections officers. Under the pay increases, correctional officers’ wages increased from $20.29 an hour to over $30 an hour, with more pay for officers in higher-security and understaffed prisons. Wages had received a $4 boost from federal pandemic relief funds prior to the increase, the Associated Press reported. 

Verdegan wrote in his book that some supervisors would try to harass or intimidate staff. Sean Daley of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) Council 32 made a similar remark to the Examiner in 2022. 

“It’s a tough enough job as it is,” Daley told the Examiner in 2022. “Add in that a lot of the supervisors think they’re ‘top-cops’ and spend their time tirelessly harassing staff with weak investigations and it just adds to the vacancy rates.”

Nearly half of security staff expressed at least some disagreement with the statements “My supervisor cares about my interests” and “Employees are treated fairly in my work unit.” 

About 1 in 10 strongly disagreed with the statement “My supervisor treats me with dignity and respect,” with about a quarter expressing at least some disagreement. About three-quarters at least somewhat agreed that they have positive relationships with their colleagues. 

Close to 40% of security staff expressed at least some disagreement with the statements “Work rule violations are not tolerated” and “I can disclose a suspected violation of a rule, law, or regulation without fear or reprisal” in the 2022 survey.  

Some individual facilities have vacancy rates for correctional officers and sergeants that are higher than the overall number for adult facilities, including  20.5% at Waupun Correctional Institution. Waupun has seen several prisoner deaths and staff charged with crimes. 

Waupun has seen an influx of staff since September, when the vacancy rate was 42%. Sarah Cooper, administrator of the DOC’s division of adult institutions, said at a public meeting in September that other staff were sent to assist Waupun. For example, Waupun also had 40 supplemental staff per pay period, she said. 

Correctional officers and sergeants are far from the only staff in Wisconsin prisons. The Department of Corrections has varying levels of vacancies of other staff. Some of the highest vacancy rates are 22% for social services and 21% for psychological services. 

Prison Policy Initiative argues for addressing staffing issues through decarceration

While Wisconsin’s large pay raises have garnered credit for bringing in new staff, the state hasn’t yet seen whether current efforts will fully staff Wisconsin prisons. A briefing published last week by the Massachusetts-based Prison Policy Initiative challenged the idea that the U.S. can solve prison staffing problems through recruitment. 

The research and advocacy group argued that decarceration would be more effective in addressing understaffing than pay raises, lowering employment requirements, offering staff wellness programs or constructing new facilities. 

The group promoted reducing the prison populations through parole, other forms of release and taking steps to decrease the number of people admitted to prison. 

As of Dec. 6, Wisconsin’s adult prisons held over 23,000 people, more than 5,000 people higher than design capacity. The adult prison population has risen over 2,500 from fiscal year 2022 to fiscal year 2024. 

Incarcerated people face the worst harms of understaffing, the PPI argued, but they noted health risks that employees face, including injury, exposure to infectious diseases and high rates of post-traumatic stress disorder and depression. 

“Unfortunately, there’s only so much that a pay raise can do to ameliorate that,” said Wanda Bertram, communications strategist for the Prison Policy Initiative. 

A 2018 survey of Washington State Department of Corrections employees found that prison employees experience PTSD at a rate equivalent to Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans and higher than police officers. These jobs take a lot out of people, Bertram said. 

In Wisconsin’s adult prisons, 452 assaults on staff took place in fiscal year 2024, according to Department of Corrections data. The incident rate was 19.6 assaults per 1,000 incarcerated people, which is the highest it’s been since at least 2013, the earliest year available. These numbers are for adult institutions and many of the assaults involve prisoners spitting or throwing bodily substances (fewer than half involve battery, physical injury or sexual assault).

How long new staff stay in corrections also matters, and Bertram pointed to challenging turnover rates found in a 2020-2021 survey. The job isn’t for everyone, said Hoffman, the former GBCI correctional officer. 

“Historically speaking, from the time that I started there to the time that I left… if 10 new people would start at one point, usually half would quit,” Hoffman said. “Because they didn’t want to work in that environment.” 

Former officers’ thoughts on Act 10

Former correctional officer Denis O’Neill has had complicated feelings about Act 10. He said he would’ve liked to have more money in his pocket, but he said the act was for the greater good of Wisconsin and saved billions for taxpayers. 

In Verdegan’s book, O’Neill recounts the story of a fight in 2015 with an incarcerated man who was attacking a staff member. Verdegan wrote that there was “no question O’Neill was fighting for his life.” 

O’Neill left GBCI with a medical termination and had physical, cognitive and speech therapy, Verdegan wrote. He had at least four documented concussions while working at GBCI. O’Neill told the Examiner that he had to go back to doctors he was seeing and get new paperwork after the state said they didn’t receive the original documents. 

“It’s their job to make it as hard as possible as they can for you so that you get sick and tired of doing everything and you forget about it,” O’Neill said. “That’s the game I felt that was being played.”

O’Neill said he received his benefits after a state senator stepped in. He thinks the union could have taken care of the issue for him if it had not been disempowered under Act 10.

“I could’ve just continued to work on my recovery,” he said. 

Kimberly Verdegan, a former GBCI correctional officer who is married to Joe Verdegan, thinks prison jobs are less desirable than teaching jobs and that the passage of Act 10 didn’t take this into account. 

“Not to say that a teacher’s job isn’t important,” Kimberly Verdegan said. “But they have their holidays off, they go home at night. They don’t get forced to stay another shift.”

The Wisconsin Department of Corrections declined comment for this story, and AFSCME Council 32 did not respond to requests for comment. 

Update: This story has been updated with the most recent data on staff vacancies and prison assaults.

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• Wisconsin budgets nearly $463,000 a year to incarcerate each child at the state’s beleaguered Lincoln Hills and Copper Lake schools, a figure that has ballooned over a decade as enrollment has plummeted.

• A new Department of Corrections budget request would nearly double that figure to about $862,000 a year — 58 times what taxpayers spend on the average K-12 public school student.

• Experts attribute the enrollment trends and costs to demographic changes, a paradigm shift from large youth prisons to smaller regional facilities and scandals on the campus that made judges hesitant to send teens to Lincoln Hills.

Wisconsin budgets nearly $463,000 a year to incarcerate each child at the state’s beleaguered juvenile prison complex in the North Woods, a figure that has ballooned over a decade as enrollment has plummeted.

A new Department of Corrections budget request would nearly double that figure to about $862,000 a year — 58 times what taxpayers spend on the average K-12 public school student.

It comes as efforts to close the Lincoln County complex — home to Lincoln Hills School for boys and Copper Lake School for girls — and build a new youth prison in Milwaukee have slowed to a crawl.  

Six years after the Legislature approved the closure plan, Republican lawmakers and Democratic Gov. Tony Evers are blaming each other during funding and policy disagreements that have delayed the closure. 

A 2018 legal settlement restricted how guards could discipline youth. That followed a series of scandals involving allegations of inhumane conditions, such as frequent use of pepper spray, strip searches and mechanical restraints and solitary confinement. 

Republicans earlier this year pushed to lift pepper spray restrictions after a 16-year-old incarcerated at Lincoln Hills struck a counselor in the face, resulting in his death. A judge denied requests to alter the settlement in a dispute that has added to closure delays, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported.

Meanwhile, the facility’s population is dwindling. As of late November, it served just 41 boys and 18 girls on a campus designed for more than 500 youth.  

Wisconsin Watch and Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service spoke to judges, lawmakers, former prison staff and researchers about the eye-popping price tag to incarcerate fewer young people. They attributed the trends to demographic changes, a paradigm shift from large youth prisons to smaller regional facilities and scandals on the campus that made judges hesitant to send teens to Lincoln Hills. 

“No judge wants to send a kid to Lincoln Hills,” said Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Laura Crivello, who has presided over juvenile cases. “You feel like you’re damning the kid. And if you look at the recidivism rates that come out of Lincoln Hills, you pretty much are damning a kid.” 

Here’s a closer look at the numbers. 

Who sets budgets for youth prisons? 

Lincoln Hills and Copper Lake schools are the state’s only youth prisons, but they are among four main state facilities for young people convicted of serious juvenile offenses. The others are Mendota Mental Health Institute, a psychiatric hospital in Madison that treats youth involved in the juvenile justice system, and Grow Academy, a residential incarceration-alternative program outside of Madison.

The Legislature sets uniform daily rates that counties pay to send youth to any of the locations — spreading costs across all facilities. 

In 2015, lawmakers approved a daily rate of $284 per juvenile across all four facilities, or nearly $104,000 a year. This year’s rate is $1,268 a day, or nearly $463,000 annually. 

The annual per-student rate would jump to about $841,000 in 2025 and nearly $862,000 in 2026 if the Legislature approves the latest Department of Corrections funding request. 

By contrast, Wisconsin spent an annual average of $14,882 per student in K-12 public schools in 2023, according to the Wisconsin Policy Forum. 

Why have costs ballooned? 

A campus built for more than 500 is mostly underused as enrollment declines, but taxpayers must still pay to maintain the same large space. It affects county budgets since they pay for youth they send to state juvenile correctional facilities.

Fixed infrastructure and staffing costs account for the largest share of expenses, said department spokesperson Beth Hardtke. Spreading the costs among fewer juveniles inflates the per capita price tag.

But taxpayers haven’t seen overall savings from the steep drop in enrollment either. The state in 2015 budgeted about $25.9 million for the Lincoln Hills and Copper Lake complex. That number climbed to about $31.3 million by 2023 with the addition of staff — a cost increase nearly in line with inflation during that period. 

Driving requests to further hike rates: The Department of Corrections seeks $19.4 million in 2026 and $19.8 million in 2027 to expand Mendota Mental Health Institute’s capacity from 29 beds for boys to 93 beds serving girls or boys — an expansion required by state law. 

The expansion requires adding 123 positions at the facility. Such additions affect calculations for the rates of all state facilities for incarcerated juveniles, including Lincoln Hills.  

Why are there fewer incarcerated students? 

The trends driving high costs at Lincoln Hills started more than 20 years ago, said Jason Stein, president of the Wisconsin Policy Forum.

First, Wisconsin is home to increasingly fewer young people. 

The state’s population of youth under 18 has been shrinking. The state saw a 3.2% dip between 2012 and 2021 — from 1,317,004 juveniles to 1,274,605 juveniles, according to a  Legislative Fiscal Bureau report.

Juvenile arrests in Wisconsin dropped by 66% during the same period.  

Meanwhile, judges became reluctant to sentence juveniles to Lincoln Hills —  even before abuse allegations escalated and prompted authorities to raid the campus in 2015.     

“I was the presiding judge at Children’s Court, when we blew open the fact that kids weren’t getting an education and they were having their arms broken,” said Mary Triggiano, an adjunct professor at Marquette University Law School and former District 1 Circuit Court chief judge.

“But we knew before that there were problems with Lincoln Hills because we watched the recidivism rates. We would bring in DOC and say: ‘Tell me what kind of services you’re going to give. Tell me why they’re not in school. Tell me why you’re keeping them in segregation for hours and hours and hours’ — when we know that’s awful for kids who experience trauma.”

Enrollment dropped and costs increased, but outcomes didn’t improve. 

More than 61% of the 131 boys who left Lincoln Hills in 2018 committed a new offense within three years, while about 47% of the 15 girls who left Copper Lake reoffended. The recidivism rate for boys during that period was roughly the same as it was for those released in 2014. The rate for girls was worse than the nearly 42% it was four years earlier. 

Stein compared Lincoln Hills to a restaurant that tries to compensate for lost customers by raising meal prices. If prices keep rising, customers will look for a different restaurant, he said. 

“That, in a nutshell, is how you get into this spiral where you’re seeing fewer residents, higher rates, and greater costs for counties,” Stein said. “Then it’s just rinse and repeat.”

How much do other states spend to incarcerate youth?  

Wisconsin is not the only state spending hundreds of thousands of dollars per juvenile it incarcerates. 

A 2020 Justice Policy Institute report showed Wisconsin spent less than the national average in 2020. But Wisconsin’s per-juvenile costs have since more than tripled as Lincoln Hills remains open and incarcerates fewer young people.  

Incarcerating juveniles is generally more expensive than it is for adults, said Ryan King, director of research and policy at Justice Policy Institute. Rehabilitation plays a bigger role in juvenile corrections, and those programs cost more. Incarcerated children typically access more  counseling, education and case management programs. 

States nationwide are rethinking their approach to youth incarceration as crime rates fall and more research shows how prison damages children, King said. 

“There was an acknowledgement that locking kids up was not only failing to make communities safer, but it was making kids worse, and really just putting them in a position where they were more likely to end up in the adult system,” he said.  

How is Wisconsin trying to reshape juvenile justice? 

In 2018, then-Gov. Scott Walker signed Act 185, designed to restructure the state’s juvenile justice system. The law kicked off plans for a new state youth prison in Milwaukee and authorized counties to build their own secure, residential care centers.

Milwaukee and Racine counties are moving forward on such plans to build these centers. The centers function similarly to county jails: County officials operate them under Department of Corrections oversight. Officials hope keeping youth closer to home will help them maintain family connections. 

“We have always pushed smaller is better. You can’t warehouse young people like you do adults,” said Sharlen Moore, a Milwaukee alderwoman and co-founder of Youth Justice Milwaukee. “Their brain just doesn’t comprehend things in that way.”

The law aimed to close troubled Lincoln Hills and give judges more options at sentencing while balancing the needs of juvenile offenders and the public. But those options have yet to fully develop. 

Today’s alternative programs typically have limited space and extensive waitlists. That won’t be fixed until more regional facilities go online. 

How else could Wisconsin spend on troubled youth? 

Triggiano, now director of the Marquette Law School’s Andrew Center for Restorative Justice, was astounded to learn youth incarceration costs could nearly double next year. 

“You just want to drop to your knees because if I had that money, we had that money, what could we do differently?” she said. 

She quickly offered ideas: programs that recognize how traumatic experiences shape behavior, violence prevention outreach in schools, community mentorship programs — evidence-based practices shown to help children and teens. Milwaukee County had worked to create some of those programs before funding was pulled, Triggiano said.

“It all got blown up in a variety of ways at every juncture,” she said. “Now there’s going to be an attachment to the secure detention facility because that’s all people could muster up after being slammed down every time we tried to do something that we thought was going to work.”

State Rep. Darrin Madison, D-Milwaukee, echoed Triggiano and offered additional spending suggestions, such as housing resources, mental health support and summer jobs programs. 

“The cost of sending one young person to Lincoln Hills would be enough to pay several young people working jobs over summer or the span of the school year,” Madison said.  

Wisconsin’s disproportionate spending on incarcerating its young people runs counter to the Wisconsin Idea, its historical commitment to education, he added. 

“We’re so committed to incarcerating people that we’re willing to eat the cost of doing so, as opposed to making investments in deterrence and getting at the root cause of the problems.” 

One child, $463,000 per year: Ballooning costs of troubled Lincoln Hills youth prison 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.

Gov. Tony Evers kicks off a budget listening session in Appleton, Wis. on Monday, Dec. 2 | Photo by Andrew Kennard

Members of the public traveled to Einstein Middle School in Appleton Monday to tell Gov. Tony Evers about their priorities for Wisconsin’s 2025-2027 budget. 

During the first of Evers’ five planned listening sessions around the state ahead of his next budget proposal, Wisconsin residents expressed concern about the cost of housing, Wisconsin prisons and other issues in a breakout group attended by the Examiner. 

In opening remarks, Evers expressed support for addressing “long neglected” priorities and cited Wisconsin’s budget surplus of over $4 billion for the 2024 fiscal year. 

Evers said his priorities include expanding BadgerCare, legalizing marijuana, protecting access to reproductive health care, gun and justice reform, protecting the environment and investing in kids and schools. 

Local Republican state Rep. Ron Tusler (R-Harrison) has a different view on the surplus, Fox 11 reported. He wants to use it to  return money to taxpayers and provide relief from inflation.  

Members of the public split into six breakout groups. Each group focused on different topics relevant to the budget. The Examiner attended the “Strong & Safe Communities” group, which addressed issues ranging from affordable housing to Wisconsin’s prison system. 

A De Pere resident brought up the high cost of housing, saying that she and her husband are from Door County but couldn’t afford to live there even though they both work. Even in De Pere, “all the houses in my neighborhood are getting bought up and flipped,” she said. 

Tom Denk, who was formerly incarcerated, said he wants to see change in Wisconsin prisons. He said he wasn’t allowed access to enrichment  programs in prison. 

“The DOC needs more funding because their staff need to be educated. They need to have that trauma-informed care,” Denk said. “Because most people are going to get out of prison. I’m one of them.”

Substance abuse and anger management programs in the Wisconsin prison system have waitlists in the thousands. The Department of Corrections’ website says the agency tries to enroll people in programming as they get close to their release date. 

Karen Winkel, a homeless prevention specialist, said many of her clients have been recently released from the Department of Corrections or the Green Lake County Jail, with “no place to go. There’s no place to live.” 

Lisa Cruz, executive director of Multicultural Coalition, Inc., said her nonprofit is overwhelmed with serving immigrants and refugees. 

“It’s [a] humanitarian crisis,” Cruz said. “And I think we often think about that happening somewhere else, in another country, maybe in another state. It’s right here and it’s right now.”

Members of the group expressed concerns about American Rescue Plan funding running out, including funding for services for crime victims. Wisconsin passed $10 million in funding for victim services earlier this year, but providers are still facing budget cuts. 

“My agency received a 72% reduction, really impacting nearly half of our budget,” said Isabel Williston, executive director of ASTOP Sexual Abuse Center. 

Jared Hoy, secretary of the Wisconsin Department of Corrections, attended the group discussion, but mostly listened since the focus was on the public’s input. 

An informational packet distributed at the event described positions the governor has taken on criminal justice. These include increasing funding for Wisconsin’s TAD (treatment alternatives and diversion) program and addressing staffing shortages that have worsened conditions in state prisons. 

Evers will introduce his budget proposal early next year, Communications Director Britt Cudaback told the Examiner in late October. In his remarks, Evers praised Wisconsin’s new legislative maps as more reflective of the “will of the people.” In last month’s election, the maps helped Democrats flip 14 previously Republican-held seats in the Legislature, narrowing Republican majorities. 

Evers’ next listening session is Wednesday evening in La Crosse, followed by Milwaukee, Ashland and a virtual session.  

Members of the public can submit comments on budget priorities through the governor’s constituent services page. 

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Transfr, a New York company, seeks to put virtual reality technology in the hands of people who are incarcerated in Wisconsin, hoping they can overcome barriers to employment once released. 

“It’s life-changing for an individual to be able to come out of incarceration with actual career pathways,” said Ruben Gaona, executive director of My Way Out, an organization that supports people who are leaving reincarceration and one of Transfr’s local collaborators. 

“They’d be able to go out into the community and say, ‘OK, you know what: I’m not only here to get a job, I’m out here to get a career.’” 

Avoiding reincarceration

Research has found that a criminal record leads to a 50% reduction in callbacks and job offers. 

The Wisconsin Department of Corrections, among others, reports that the more likely someone with a criminal record is employed, the less likely the person is to return to incarceration. 

According to the department’s 2022 report, people who “completed vocational programming had lower rearrest, reconviction and reincarceration rates … compared to their peers who were identified as having a vocational programming need but who did not receive programming.” 

“From a personal and professional standpoint, I can tell you that a good-paying, career-supporting job is very essential to someone staying out and keeping that recidivism rate down,” said Andre Brown, employment specialist with Project RETURN, a reentry nonprofit established nearly 50 years ago.

For all the talk about pipelines into prison, Brown and his colleagues are trying to create a pipeline out of prison.

“If one can support themselves, pay their bills, take care of their family and have some fulfillment, one has no time to think of crime,” Brown said. 

Inside and outside

My Way Out provides six weeks of training and education to people inside Milwaukee County Community Reintegration Center, a county-run correctional facility. This support is designed to help people with job searches, including résumé writing and interviewing skills. 

With Transfr, Gaona and his team see an opportunity to expand their support by adding four weeks of virtual reality training for in-demand vocations, in fields such as construction, manufacturing,  hospitality and health care.

My Way Out staff also want to bring these resources to state prisons overseen by the Department of Corrections. 

“People will be able to come out (of incarceration) and take apprenticeship tests, so they’d start getting placement in apprenticeship programs and secure living-wage jobs,” said Gaona. 

Funding obstacle

Funding is the main obstacle to getting this technology into the hands of people who are incarcerated. 

The Department of Corrections does not have a budget for this type of technology but suggested that Transfr reach out to Wisconsin Workforce Development Boards, which partner with the department in reentry work, Beth Hardtke, director of communications for the Department of Corrections, said in an email. 

Ryan Leonhardt, state workforce manager for Transfr, said the company has had conversations with these boards but, for the most part, has heard that funding is not currently available from them as well.  

My Way Out applied for a grant that would help provide funding to work with Transfr, but its request was denied. 

Opportunities

Transfr offers more than 350 trainings, all 12 to 20 minutes, which teach foundational skills within various fields, Leonhardt said.

“If somebody is learning how to use calipers, they pick up calipers in the virtual environment. They set the calipers using the controls. They actually do the measurements,” said Leonhardt, explaining how Transfr users learn about this measurement tool common in engineering, metalworking and woodworking. “And then the final thing is they get step-by-step instruction from a digital coach, who then turns around and gives them an assessment.” 

Transfr also provides career explorations. Like the trainings, these are hands-on and guided by a coach but are five- to eight-minute experiences of a day in the life of a job “so people can get an idea of what it’s like,” Leonhardt said. 

Better trained workers are beneficial not just for the people getting trained but for the wider economy as well because of nationwide workforce shortages, Leonhardt said.

“Right now, the labor markets are such a way that if someone can come in and they have foundational skills … they’re going to have better chances for employment because they’re going to be able to meet their (employers’) needs right away,” he said. 

News414 is a service journalism collaboration between Wisconsin Watch and Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service that addresses the specific issues, interests, perspectives and information needs identified by residents of central city Milwaukee neighborhoods. Learn more at our website or sign up for our texting service here.

Virtual reality technology connects people who are incarcerated to a new type of job training 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.