Dodge Co. Sheriff calls Evers prison plan 'seriously flawed'

 

JUNEAU, Wis. (CBS 58) -- When it comes to reshaping Wisconsin's prisons, there are two ideas just about everyone seems to support. However, beyond closing Green Bay Correctional Institution and repurposing Waupun Correctional Institution, Democratic Gov. Tony Evers' prison reform plan is hitting a wall with Republican lawmakers whose votes he'll need. 

Dodge County Sheriff Dale Schmidt is also criticizing key elements of Evers' nearly $500 million proposal, calling it "seriously flawed" this week in a release.

Evers' plan comes with the state's correctional facilities being the subject of numerous incidents, including five deaths at Waupun over a 14-month span between 2023 and 2024 and the death of a guard at the Lincoln Hills youth prison last year.

Schmidt investigated four of the deaths and found probable cause the prison's warden and eight employees had committed crimes in connection to the inmates' deaths.

In an interview Friday, Schmidt said he was on board with closing the Green Bay prison and converting Waupun, the state's oldest prison, from a maximum-security prison to a medium-security "vocational village" emphasizing job skills training.

"The positives are they're addressing the two facilities in the state that are the oldest, that need to be replaced or renovated," Schmidt said.

Jared Hoy, secretary of the Wisconsin Department of Corrections (DOC), said the plan would "reimagine" the Waupun facility and "rewrite the narrative."

Schmidt, however, criticized the idea of closing the Green Bay prison without building a new facility in its place. He pointed to DOC numbers showing the state's approximately 23,000 inmates exceed the statewide prison capacity by about 5,400. 

Evers' plan would make up for some of the lost capacity by converting Lincoln Hills to an adult men's prison and moving juvenile offenders to facilities in Milwaukee and Madison. Another change would be converting Stanley Correctional Institution to a maximum-security prison.

To make up for a bed deficit that'd still exist, Evers' plan would expand eligibility for early release to inmates who've committed "nonviolent, non-assaultive" offenses once they're within four years of their sentence ending.

Schmidt said his concern was that given the current bed deficit, and projections the state's inmate population would react 24,000 over the next two years, there was no way to safely release that many people that early.

"It does have me worried about public safety," Schmidt said. "If you release these people too early, before they're ready to be released into the community, the chance of recidivism goes up."

Evers' proposal aims to provide more resources for offenders who'd be out of prison and under supervision, particularly those struggling with drug addiction. There would be nearly $9 million committed to expanding the "Alternative to Revocation Programs." Another $10.7 million would go to the Division of Community Corrections and Reentry Unit, which is tasked with supervising offenders on probation, parole or extended supervision.

"There's not an alternative to my plan that is safer, faster and cheaper. Period," Evers told reporters last week.

Schmidt said he supported expanded substance abuse treatment, drug courts and more resources for parole and probation officers. Still, he worried the scale of early release expansion would lead to a net increase in the number of offenders falling through the cracks.

"Help these people with these social programs. It's not a bad thing to do that, to help people who have been struggling," he said. "But, at the same time, we have to have the facilities in place to house the ones that we cannot rehabilitate."

Schmidt pointed to DOC recidivism data; department numbers from 2016 to 2018 showed about one-third of offenders were reconvicted within three years of their release.

"People who are on probation and parole know that they can game the system because there's not enough capacity to take care of or supervising all these people that are on probation and parole," he said. "I don't even think the judges realize how broken it is."

Republican lawmakers pledged they will essentially rewrite Evers' proposed two-year state budget after the governor's biennial budget address Tuesday night. Schmidt said he hoped they'd craft a prison reform plan that increased rehabilitation resources but also added capacity to the state's prison system.

"I think supporting those programs is a good thing because it gives people who are in prison the opportunity to get better," he said. "And I do want to see people get better and rehabilitated and become productive members of society. Those programs are not 100%."