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.

GET THE MORNING HEADLINES.

SUBSCRIBE