Evers eyes monumental task of Wisconsin prison reform

Reports of mistreatment within prisons have been rising within Wisconsin, leading to concerns about what needs to be changed regarding rehabilitation of prisoners and current conditions. Recent issues have included claims of inhumane conditions, inmate suicide, and smuggling at the Waupun Correctional Institute. Calls for psychiatric evaluation in the Taycheedah Correctional Institution also acts as an example of issues going on within the system. In response to these concerns, Governor Tony Evers has announced a multi-phase plan to close and reform facilities across the state by 2031. These plans, which will cost a projected $535 million, involve closing the maximum security Green Bay Correctional Institution, converting the Copper Hills and Lincoln Hills juvenile facilities into adult medium security prisons, and building a new facility in Dane County to house these juvenile institutions’ current residents.

One of Evers’ main priorities in reforming the state’s prisons is reducing the number of incarcerated individuals in the system. Wisconsin’s prison population has been rising at a concerning rate, and, according to Wisconsin Watch, the state’s adult institutions were operating at roughly 5,000 people above capacity last August. Dr. Matthew Richie, a professor of criminology at UW-Oshkosh, explains that adjustment to the end of pandemic-era policy may be responsible for the recent surge in the number of people in Wisconsin’s prisons. 

“The only reason they would be rising is that we released a lot of people during COVID to be able to manage COVID better, and those people got out, but then people filled back in,” he said. “So we artificially lowered it because of external stimuli, and now it’s naturally coming back up to where it was initially.”

According to Dr. Richie, Evers entered office in 2019 with the ambitious goal of halving the state’s prison population, which has remained above 20,000 people throughout the governor’s administration and currently sat at 22,800 as of last August. Dr. Richie suggests that the new plans, which involve cutting the state’s correctional system capacity by 700 people, are motivated by this objective.

“The prison population can't be larger than it was when he took office, or that would be political suicide,” he said. “If he wants to close [Green Bay Correctional], he's got a plan to shift everybody else around the state, including the officers working that place.”

Many have questioned the safety of releasing large numbers of inmates to achieve the governor’s plans. Oshkosh West sophomore Megan Hope expresses concern with mistreated inmates reentering Wisconsin communities. 

“If they're going back into society like that, they're just going to do it again,” she said. “I feel like for the most part it's just going to be a cycle of crime. They're just going to keep on doing what they got in prison for.”

She stresses on how important it is to bring people into a society with a clearer state of mind, and suggested that therapy could be the answer.

“Prisons should do group therapy,” she said. “I think that therapy would be better than not because prisoners could talk to and relate to other people who are in prison with them.” 

Junior Samantha Bryant agrees that therapy has an imperative role in the rehabilitation process. 

“It’s going to be hard for some of them to find jobs because they've been in there for a long time, and it'll be hard for them to adapt to society and how much it's changed,” she said. “Put them in therapy. I feel like it'll be better for them.”

The difficulties facing individuals when they are released from prison extend beyond psychological challenges. Structural difficulties make it difficult for those with a prison record to secure employment, access housing, and find social support, Dr. Richie describes.

“There’s this group of people that don't commit any crime, but they're also not exactly thriving, so they just sort of live life on the margins,” he said. “They're not getting ahead, they're sort of surviving, and it's this sort of abysmal quality of life, but because they're not reoffending, researchers consider them a success.”

While a prison record can easily become a life sentence in its own right, Dr. Richie points out that prisons offer a variety of programs to help inmates develop the skills and coping mechanisms that they may have needed to prevent them from entering the prison system in the first place. 

“Education is a big part of it. We want everybody coming out of prison with at least a high school equivalency so that they have that baseline,” he said. “We used to run a convict college program where we had students go in to teach in Oshkosh Correctional, and it was half an Intro to Criminal Justice class and half a prep college course. So you get the feeling for what a college class is but then you get all the tools to apply for college when you get released.”

Since many who commit serious crimes struggle with substance abuse and mental health disorders, many prisons and jails also offer resources to support prisoners’ recovery efforts; this includes the Winnebago County Jail, which is unique for its S.T.A.R. treatment program. According to Dr. Richie, the transformative potential of such programs can be seen in the way that their most committed participants discuss their progress with judges and others in the legal system.

“It was all wonderful, because this person is excited about treatment, engaged in treatment, and could see it working,” he said. “She sees that there's an opportunity to do better and to get her life in order.”

Under Evers’ proposed reforms, new strategies will be implemented to help offenders secure a more stable living situation after release. The maximum security Waupun Correctional Institution, for instance, is slated for conversion into a medium security facility with an extensive vocational training program, the AP reported.

Hope believes that activities could help reintegration, and thinks that prisons should bring new ideas to the table. 

“I think that there should be activities throughout their day where inmates can slowly make their way back into society,” she said.

Bryant agrees that increased time socializing may be beneficial to prisoners and suggests changes to current security norms. 

“I think we should let them have the ability to help socialize,” she said. “If they're locked up inside and not allowed to go anywhere, it’s not going to help them when going back into society. Maybe there should be more security so they can be monitored but also out doing something.”

With the correctional system reforms, Evers hopes not only to create updated and better managed facilities, but to expand the state’s earned release policy, which currently allows non-violent offenders with a history of drug abuse to petition for a shorter sentence if they demonstrate success with prison programming. Dr. Richie says that this would be a major break from policy followed by the state in recent decades.

“In 1999, we effected a law called Truth in Sentencing. Right now, and since 1999, if you get served a sentence of ten years in Wisconsin, you will serve every day of that ten years,” he said. “Earned release would incentivize better behavior in prison in favor of release.”

While many, including prominent Republicans in the state legislature, fear that creating mechanisms to reduce prison sentences will lead to higher crime rates, Dr. Richie suggests these worries may be overblown.

“People in prisons for five, ten years, are different people, because they’ve had this structure and all this positive stimuli from the programming staff, to change how they think about things, to change how they move through the world,” he said. “Ultimately, there’s research that suggests that people after seven years are no more likely to commit an offense than anyone who hasn’t committed an offense. So when I think about long sentences, absolutely they're warranted for certain offenders, but the majority of offenders are gonna stop offending seven years after their first offense.”

However, Dr. Richie notes that, because the program creates another decision point in the criminal justice system, there are other challenges inherent to earned release.

“When inmates are going up for release, this is where racial disparities happen, because it’s the minority member that’s getting a hard look-at.  So we can talk about parole boards, bringing back earned release, but if there is any way that this could be genderized or racialized, that's a problem,” he said. “Truth in Sentencing, this whole you do 100 percent of your time, is a harsh law, but it's fair because everybody serves 100 percent of their time.”

Given the high price tag attached to Evers’ proposed reforms and the controversiality of shortening prison sentences, the plan is likely to face strong political headwinds as it is put up for approval from Wisconsin’s Republican-majority legislature. Dr. Richie says that there are no easy answers to the political dispute that may be on the horizon. 

“I don’t know how he’s going to do it. I don’t know how he was going to cut 50 percent of the prison population when he came in the first time,” he said. “You’ve got to think, if that’s his starting offer, the other side’s got to be like, we don’t like that, here’s our counter, and I hope that through those negotiations we end up with something halfway decent.

Dr. Richie suggests that, while closing the 127-year-old Green Bay Correctional Institute and completing other facilities updates will save the state maintenance costs, political tension concerning this issue may cause some inefficiencies to linger in the correctional system.

“Renovating prisons is typically more costly than building a new one,” he said. “So financially, it makes more sense to tear it down and build something else, but politically, you’d never find the money to build a new prison these days. Evers is sort of stuck because he doesn’t have the staff within the prisons to staff it as is, but if he can reshuffle employees and inmates, he gets a better staffing ratio, which is what the Department of Corrections needs.”

by Kaylee Beck and Aria Boehler

Published March 17th, 2025

Oshkosh West Index Volume 121 Issue VI