Amidst a heat wave in Madison, people who were once incarcerated in Wisconsin’s prison system and supporters gathered Wednesday morning to protest outside the Wisconsin Department of Corrections central office. 

Speakers supported a lower prison population, better living conditions for incarcerated people and independent oversight of the prison system, which has been the target of criticism for a rash of deaths in custody as well as conditions of confinement in aging, understaffed facilities.

“There’s a severe overcrowding crisis in Wisconsin’s prison system right now,” said Mark Rice, transformational justice campaign coordinator for the nonprofit advocacy group WISDOM. Rice said the crisis is creating dangerously unstable conditions for people who work in the prisons as well as incarcerated people. 

In October, the State of Wisconsin Building Commission voted to release $15 million to prepare preliminary plans and a design report for a prison system revamp, a first step toward large-scale structural change to the system of prison facilities.

Rice urged people to get out and vote, and said voters should talk with candidates and elected officials about the state of Wisconsin’s corrections system. He referenced WISDOM’s gubernatorial candidate forum last month. 

“I want to see candidates have the courage to step up and talk about these issues, too,” Rice said. 

The Wisconsin Department of Corrections provided a detailed statement in response to a request for comment from the Examiner, replying to the criticisms of Wisconsin’s corrections system from activists. 

The department first directed the Examiner to the last four state budgets proposed by Gov. Tony Evers, “much of which were rejected by the Republican-controlled Legislature,” communications director Beth Hardtke said. 

“Beyond that, you will need to ask lawmakers what their plans are to address Wisconsin’s corrections challenges and move our correctional system into the 21st Century,” she said.

Different portrayals of solitary confinement

Activists at the protest and the DOC differed in their descriptions of what it’s like to experience solitary confinement in the Wisconsin prison system. 

Rice told the Examiner that stories shared about solitary confinement and “other inhumane conditions of confinement” during his group’s virtual meetings had inspired the protest. At an event covered by the Examiner last year, people who experienced solitary confinement described it as traumatizing, and questioned its effectiveness as a way to change behavior as well as arguing that incarcerated people are sometimes put in solitary for things they shouldn’t be punished for. 

Talib Akbar of the WISDOM affiliate MOSES showed the Examiner a portable replica of a solitary confinement cell inside a truck, which was parked in the Department of Corrections parking lot during the protest. 

Akbar, who said he left prison in 2013, said the truck is based on a replica constructed by Edgewood College over a decade ago. That replica was based on Akbar’s own experience in solitary confinement. 

Hot days, like the day of the protest, can bring an additional burden for people in prisons, many of whom do not have access to air conditioning. 

Crystal Keller of FREE Movement, which focuses on women impacted by the justice system, said she’s been raising her grandson while her daughter has been incarcerated at Taycheedah Correctional Institution. She said her daughter is currently in restrictive housing, also known as solitary confinement. 

“Because she doesn’t have access to a tablet, my daughter and I are limited to one 15-minute phone call every nine or 10 days,” Keller said, adding that she can’t visit her daughter in person in restrictive housing and that logging onto video visits requires driving more than an hour each way. 

Hardtke, the DOC communications director, said in her statement to the Examiner that the “popular image” of restrictive housing often shows a “small dark room,” which she said is inaccurate. 

“I should also note that the popular image of restrictive housing often shows a small dark room,” Hardtke said. “It’s not accurate. The cells in the restricted housing unit at Waupun Correctional Institution, for example, have windows where individuals can see outdoors. Individuals can control their own lights in their cells. Clocks are hung to be visible from every cell front.”

Hardtke stated that people in disciplinary separation — people sent to solitary confinement because they were found to have committed a violation — “still have plenty of human interaction each day.” She attached a copy of a restrictive housing policy and said it lays out that a person is supposed to be kept there for the “minimum amount of time necessary to help them change their behavior.”

“They have access to visits, recreation, therapy and programming in their cell and on the restrictive housing unit,” Hardtke said. “Communication with family and others is not cut off. Individuals in disciplinary separation also have the opportunity to be released back into the general population after serving only half of their sentence if their behavior in restrictive housing is appropriate.”

A report the DOC released in November from its partnership with Falcon Inc., a consulting and management firm, took a different tone on solitary confinement. 

The DOC has contracted with the firm to implement a series of reform proposals, the Examiner reported earlier this month.

The Falcon report released in November stated that out-of-cell programming and recreation time is “very limited,” and that each individual in restrictive housing should receive a minimum of two hours of out-of-cell time per day for recreation and/or programming, not including necessary activities like showers. 

A person involved with the Wisconsin Mental Health Action Partnership (MHAP), which aims to improve mental health care in Wisconsin, sent the Examiner a slideshow dated March of this year that the DOC reportedly presented to one of the group’s committees. 

The slideshow indicates that the Department of Corrections was stating that the agency would need at least one of the following to provide two hours of out-of-cell time per day for each person in restrictive housing: additional staffing, material resources, new construction or remodeling, technology upgrades or significant changes to current policies or operations. 

The Falcon report also stated that restrictive housing initiatives still require support, particularly to improve conditions for incarcerated people and staff. It made a series of recommendations that aim to decrease the overall use of restrictive housing and improve living conditions, though the slideshow indicates the DOC stated further change is needed before some of these recommendations are feasible.

The report also noted potential negative effects of solitary confinement in general (not specifically analyzing Wisconsin) including physical harm and negative effects on mental health and overall well-being, as well as an increased risk for self-harm and suicide. 

Calls for oversight

One speaker at the protest read a statement from the prison reform advocacy group Ladies of SCI, calling for an ombudsman office for corrections that would help address complaints about prison problems, instead of relying on the prison system’s internal complaint process. 

Prison reform activists have been calling for Wisconsin to join the ranks of states with independent prison oversight bodies since at least 2024. Hardtke told the Examiner that the Department of Corrections supported Evers’ plan to create a DOC ombudsperson’s office, which the governor proposed as part of the last state budget. 

“Again, that is not something the agency can do without legislative action and funding,” Hardtke said. 

Last year, Evers proposed an Office of the Ombudsperson for Corrections that would have been attached to the Department of Corrections, which was removed by lawmakers. Wisconsin Public Radio reported that officials with Evers’ administration said the office would operate in a “functionally independent” manner. 

“We’d much rather see it be completely separate to stay with the purpose of an ombudsman,” Susan Franzen of Ladies of SCI told the Examiner over email last year. “But we would be supportive of any movement towards some sort of oversight at this point.” Rebecca Aubart, of the same group, said that if the office Evers proposed was not independent, it could not be properly described as an ombudsman. 

In February 2025, Wisconsin Public Radio reported that Senate President Mary Felzkowski (R-Tomahawk) criticized the proposal, stating that “de facto lifetime appointments (which the ombudsperson appears to be), almost a dozen new bureaucrats, and millions of dollars are not creative solutions.” 

Overcrowded prisons, especially for women

Yolanda Perkins, of FREE Movement, said that overcrowding in prisons is “suffocating,” not just uncomfortable, and is an environment where mental health breaks down. 

“Women are entering into a system, carrying (trauma already), and instead of receiving care, they are met with long waits, limited access or no support at all,” Perkins said. “Pain that can be treated is ignored until it becomes a crisis.”

In May, Wisconsin Watch reported that the state’s three women’s prisons collectively housed 18 women for every 10 the prisons were designed to hold, and that they were the most crowded of all state facilities. 

In a court filing in April, the DOC said that due to overcrowding, Taycheedah Correctional Institution, a women’s prison, had already undergone conversions to turn spaces into living areas that were not originally meant to be living areas.

Wisconsin Watch reported that Hardtke said beds have previously been set up in the gym at Taycheedah but that no one was currently living in the gym. Hardtke said staff were converting a “former property room” into a dormitory to house 20 women.

This isn’t unheard of for Taycheedah. A 2020 draft report on the DOC’s website indicates that at the time of the report, 340 incarcerated women were living in two “very old buildings” that had been converted into correctional housing. Some group rooms and an office space in those buildings 

Most of the 50-square-foot maximum security, non-segregated cells at the often-scrutinized Green Bay and Waupun Correctional Institutions were being used for double occupancy, and failed to meet standards such as the American Correctional Association Standards for Adult Correctional Institutions.

The Examiner reported in April on how the DOC has said it wants a program that would allow eligible incarcerated women to live with their babies within prison walls but that this is “currently impossible” in the existing prison system. The department cited a lack of sufficient funding and overcrowding in women’s prisons. 

Hardtke said that the Department of Corrections’ role in the justice system is to carry out the sentence the courts impose on a person as well as provide opportunities for rehabilitation and skills so that people can successfully return to communities. 

Except under limited circumstances such as the earned release program, the department doesn’t have the ability to alter a person’s sentence, Hardtke said, adding that reducing the prison population would require legislative changes and resources. 

Community corrections

At the protest, Rice argued that the Department of Corrections needs to put fewer people back behind bars for breaking a rule of their supervision in the community without committing a new crime. 

Rice argued that the money that’s being “wasted” on this type of revocation could be used to help incarcerated people return to the community. 

In her statement to the Examiner, Hardtke argued that while advocates highlight cases where a person’s community supervision was revoked for violating the rules of supervision, most individuals returned to prison have their supervision revoked for criminal behavior. 

Hardtke said that the DOC’s research and policy team recently looked at revocations for 2024 and 2025 to determine how many were solely for rules violations. She said that in 2025, 6,952 people had their community supervision revoked for a criminal offense and 1,188 individuals were revoked because of a non-criminal rules violation. 

In 2024, 7,064 people were revoked for a criminal offense and 1,026 were revoked for a non-criminal rules violation, she said. 

Earlier this year, the Wisconsin Department of Corrections entered into a  contract to put a series of reform proposals into practice.

DOC Secretary Jared Hoy signed the contract with Falcon Correctional and Community Services, Inc, a consulting and management firm that produced a report and made recommendations in partnership with the DOC. 

The report gave Wisconsin’s adult prison system advice on how to provide incarcerated people with better healthcare, reduce prisons’ use of solitary confinement and address a persistent understaffing problem. It found a significant number of staff were hired during or after the COVID-19 pandemic, and that newer staff had limitations because they were trained while normal operations were suspended due to the pandemic. 

The report also found a “general lack of uniformity” across facilities, creating problems with monitoring, oversight and accountability. Facilities needed a standard approach to basic security practices, incident reporting, investigations and hiring practices, the report recommended. 

In the contract documents, the DOC and Falcon plan to implement recommendations from the report, though the report stated that the majority of recommendations will require funding from the state. Susan Franzen of the prison reform advocacy group Ladies of SCI expressed concern about whether overcrowding and staffing shortages will affect the agency’s ability to effectively carry out the recommendations, and called for action from the state Legislature. 

Contract documents obtained by the Examiner in May show that “Phase 1” of the partnership involves Falcon helping the department turn recommendations into plans for action, visiting facilities, providing mentorship and coaching and helping prepare prisons to maintain the new changes after the partnership is over. 

The Department of Corrections didn’t respond to the Examiner’s requests for comment about whether any changes have been made to the contract’s status or the documents since the Examiner received them from the department on May 13. 

According to the documents, “Phase 1” focuses on six prisons, including the often-scrutinized Green Bay and Waupun Correctional Institutions.

The other prisons included in this phase are Taycheedah Correctional Institution, which houses women, the maximum-security Columbia Correctional Institution and the medium-security Redgranite and Stanley Correctional Institutions. 

DOC will follow recommendations from various priorities in the Falcon report, which include sections on solitary confinement, medical and mental health practices and human resources and staffing, according to the contract documents. 

Franzen of the Ladies of SCI said in a May interview that she thinks the Department of Corrections leadership in Madison wants to improve the system. She expressed concern about whether the change in approach will be carried out at the level of individual correctional officers working in particular units in the prison system. 

Some efforts may happen at a system-wide level when appropriate, according to the contract documents. This includes Falcon working with the DOC to train staff throughout the department’s division of adult prisons in two areas: “security back-to-basics” and building a culture of dignity and respect. 

For Franzen, the partnership raises the question of what metrics will be used to determine whether the department is succeeding at creating this culture. 

“I want to hear things from family members [of incarcerated people] that are different,” Franzen said. 

The department also planned a review of its adult prison policies to begin in March 2026. The goal is to fix gaps and redundancies and to have the policies match the new reforms. 

Under the contract, the project cost can’t go above $500,000 without prior approval from the DOC, with Falcon receiving payment in four installments after completion of tasks.

Site visits

The contract lists plans for two Falcon site visits, along with a third that would happen later in the phase if the DOC decides it is necessary. 

The first visit and a DOC/Falcon leadership summit were scheduled for early March 2026. It’s unclear whether the second visit has happened yet; the documents say it will take place partway through the process of implementing reforms. 

The second visit aims to provide mentoring, identify problems and review how the reforms are being put into practice, the contract documents say. The visit will be “strategically targeted” based on information gathered through remote monitoring and Department of Corrections oversight. 

The third visit, if the department holds it, would focus on sustaining improvements, leadership readiness and reform in the long term.

“There’s only so much you can tell from a video call,” Franzen said. “…I would hope that they take advantage of that [potential third visit], because I think that’s going to be a really good way to help reinforce things, and making sure that things have changed.”

Advocates want more oversight

The Department of Corrections has held friends and family forums for loved ones of people who are incarcerated or on active community supervision, and Franzen said advocates participated in a virtual workshop for the Falcon report last year. But Franzen wishes the Falcon report had dug deeper, and she also wants to see Wisconsin create an independent ombudsman’s office with oversight over the DOC. 

“I appreciate that they’re doing this, but yes… this is money that also could’ve been put towards an ombuds for someone that’s in it for the long haul,” Franzen said. “And also not someone who’s depending on a paycheck from the DOC.” 

Mark Rice, criminal justice campaign coordinator for the advocacy organization WISDOM, wants to see people impacted by the prison system having a central role in the process. 

Rice took issue with one of the contract documents, which states Falcon cannot employ a person who is on active probation, parole or extended supervision for any position where their primary duties involve working with incarcerated people or involves access to the records or funds of incarcerated people. 

“I feel that’s a lost opportunity,” Rice said. “Some of the people who would be the best and most informed people to be a part of this as paid staff are people currently under supervision.”