Wisconsin Prisoner Voice

Wisconsin lawmakers discuss proposal to cut number of prison meals to save the state money

2011-05-02T09:51:00.001-07:00

Prisons cost money. Prisoners are human beings just like you and me. They need food in order to live. When are lawmakers and politicians going to stop abusing the human and basic constitutional rights of people in prisons by trying to deny them food? What good will it do the taxpayers who elect politicians, when more security is needed? When more medical bills need to be paid for because of the lack of nutrients and lack of food?

Why don´t politicians like Mark Radcliffe come up with laws for less long sentences? A reduction of people returning to prison like the revolving door phenomenon? Better education and more work for all are also badly needed.

Via The Real Cost of Prisons:

Wisconsin lawmakers discuss proposal to cut number of prison meals to save the state money

* STEPHANIE JONES The Journal Times, Racine
May 02, 2011

STURTEVANT, Wis. — Today's prison menu includes oatmeal for breakfast, hamburgers for lunch and chicken a la king for dinner.

In the future, one of those meals could be taken off the menu, leaving a brunch and dinner.

State Rep. Mark Radcliffe, a Democrat from Black River Falls, has proposed a bill that would reduce the number of meals served at prisons and jails to save money. Rep. Robin Vos, R-Rochester, said it is an idea worth consideration for the state budget.

John Paquin, warden at the Racine Correctional Institution in Sturtevant, said he has not taken a position on it. But he is concerned it could bring about some security issues.

Inmates look forward to getting out of their cells for meals and other activities, he said. If the meal schedule is changed, Paquin said some of the approximately 1,500 inmates in the correctional institute in Sturtevant could get edgy or testy. They could also protest by not going to meals, he said.

"One thing inmates are always concerned about is the food," Paquin said. "It's not like they can go down to the local McDonald's," he said.

Radcliffe also did not return a call for comment on his bill. But Vos, who is co-chairman of the state's Joint Finance Committee, said the proposal is worth reviewing if it saves the state money.

"I don't think being in prison guarantees you three meals a day," Vos said. "There are very few days I eat three meals a day, and I get along ... But at the same time we want to make sure people are adequately taken care of."

Tim Le Monds, a spokesman with the Department of Corrections, said he does not know how much it would save and the department has not analyzed the impact of the proposed change. But he said it's his understanding that the proposal would not reduce the number of calories that are offered. Those calories are based on federal nutritional guidelines, he said.

Le Monds also said the state made a meal change last fall which saved money without cutting breakfast.

Instead of having different meals at all the state correctional sites, they created a standardized meal rotation schedule for all state correctional institutions. The change consolidated food ordering for approximately 30 different state facilities and saved money by ordering in bulk, Le Monds said. It started in fall, and Le Monds said it has already saved the state about $2 million.
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Information from: The Journal Times, http://www.journaltimes.com

http://www.greenfieldreporter.com/view/story/f5d66c9c52784877af8429301dc14206/WI--Exchange-Reduced-Prison-Meals/

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker's budget tightens early prison release

2011-03-06T12:42:00.000-08:00

From: Green Bay Press Gazette

Doyle program has affected 479 inmates for 'limited' savings

Gov. Scott Walker's plan to rescind former Gov. Jim Doyle's cost-saving sentencing reform measures will have little positive effect on the state budget or even on Walker's wish to restore truth in sentencing, data from the state Department of Corrections shows.

Walker has proposed changing the funding for the prison system, taking it from a $1.3 billion budget for this year to $1.2 billion in 2012 and then back up to $1.27 billion in 2013.

In Walker's recent budget address, the governor said his plan would restore truth in sentencing, state efforts begun in the late 1990s to more closely tie court sentences to actual time that inmates serve.

While he didn't address whether costs would increase because inmates could be kept in prison longer, he said the intention is separating issues of early release from budget considerations.

To some observers, the repealing of Doyle's early release initiatives seem contradictory to Walker's cost-cutting strategies.

"There appears to be substantial cuts planned in the DOC budget, and at the same time, we're expecting prisoners are going to stay locked up for longer periods," Brown County Judge J.D. McKay said. "That costs money. I don't completely understand the logic of the two; they seem to run counter to each other."

In reality, Walker's planned changes to Doyle's early release measures will affect relatively few inmates.

Doyle's plan, which started on Oct.1, 2009, was originally expected to save as much as $27 million over two years. Actual savings have been minimal because relatively few inmates have been released early under the program, prison data shows.

Out of a prison population of more than 22,000, only 479 inmates were released early since Oct. 1, 2009, according to prison spokesman Tim LeMonds. No specific figure of cost savings was available, LeMonds said, but "over the last few years, it was extremely minimal."

The largest share — 362 inmates — were released under the sentence adjustment program, a program that will remain largely intact under Walker's proposed changes, according to Tony Streveler, the prison system's policy initiatives advisor.

Read the rest here.

Spokeswoman: Wis. National Guard preparing for possibility of guarding prisons if guards walk

2011-02-23T02:57:00.000-08:00

By Associated Press (via Fox6)
Feb 22, 2011

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — A Wisconsin National Guard spokeswoman says its members have been visiting prisons to prepare for securing them in the event that correctional officers walk off the job to protest Gov. Scott Walker.

Lt. Col. Jackie Guthrie said Tuesday that guard members visited the Redgranite Correctional Institution in central Wisconsin and others in recent weeks. She stressed that the visits were to update long-standing contingency plans for providing services during an emergency, and that Walker had not asked the guard to be on alert.

Guthrie noted that then-Acting Gov. Martin Schreiber activated 6,000 members of the guard in 1977 amid a work stoppage to guard prisoners and deliver other state services. She said that, based on history, "of course we're going to be prepared should such a call come."

See also the Badger Herald:
Labor leaders call reports of strike endorsement premature.
National Guard official says Guard ready to take over in case strike indeed occurs

By David Brazy
Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Tuesday’s reports that the South Central Federation of Labor was calling for a general strike may have been premature, according to a federation official.

SCFL Vice President David Mandehr said despite media rumors, the federation did not endorse a general strike at its monthly meeting on Monday night because its bylaws do not allow the members to do so.

“Basically we had a vote, and it’s just a motion to form a committee on how we could get information out to our constituents if a general strike is called,” Mandehr said.

Mandehr said if a general strike would be called, it would have to go through the AFL-CIO with the SCFL’s affiliate unions.

The SCFL is an umbrella organization representing 97 unions and 45,000 members in five Wisconsin counties, according to the SCFL website.

Some of the confusion may have come from a statement on the SCFL’s website which said the federation would endorse a strike if the bill is passed.

“The SCFL endorses a general strike, possibly for the day Walker signs his ‘budget repair bill,’” the statement said.

However, under the statement endorsing a general strike the website also said the SCFL did not call for a strike at the meeting because they did not have the authority.

The SCFL also passed a motion opposing all aspects of the budget repair bill at the meeting.

If the repair bill is passed, many workers are not planning on backing down. Union member Cheri Caff said they will continue to stand up to Walker’s plan.

“We need to go head to head with him until he backs off of our bargaining rights,” Carr said.

If the repair bill is passed and widespread strikes follow — including correctional officers — the Wisconsin National Guard is prepared to help support state prisons, according to Lt. Col. Jackie Guthrie.

Guthrie said the National Guard has visited state correction facilities this year. She added they do routine visits every year to be prepared in the event of any kind of emergency.

“We are always ready to ensure the safety of Wisconsin … we are also preparing for spring flooding and a flu pandemic but that doesn’t mean those things will happen,” Guthrie said.

Wisconsin’s prison population declines

2010-12-23T03:21:00.000-08:00

From: Wisconsin Radio Network

by Andrew Beckett on December 23, 2010

in Crime & Courts

It’s been getting a little less crowded in Wisconsin’s prisons. Department of Corrections Secretary Rick Raemisch says the number of inmates in state prisons was at about 22,000 at the end of fiscal year 2009, down nearly 1,800 over the past three years. The numbers reflect a three-percent drop in the population over the last five years.

Read the rest here.

Innocent Wis. Convict Wavers Between Anger, Hope

2010-12-22T04:30:00.000-08:00

by The Associated Press
MILWAUKEE December 7, 2010
On: NPR

It wasn't the 23 years behind bars that made Robert Lee Stinson's prison sentence so agonizing. Nor was it the humiliating treatment by prison guards.

What really tormented him was watching his youth slip away as he served time for a murder he didn't commit.

The Wisconsin Innocence Project helped free him last year, and now the 46-year-old Milwaukee man wants to make sure no one else has to endure what he suffered. Stinson is seeking $115,000 from a state claims board this week, a settlement that could help him afford a criminal-justice degree.

"We want to shoot for $5,000 for each year," the soft-spoken man told The Associated Press. "That's not nearly enough to compensate me for spending 23 years in prison. But it will really help me purchase a vehicle and pay for tuition."

The claims board is scheduled to consider his claim Thursday. Wisconsin regulations limit compensation for wrongful imprisonment to $5,000 per year or $25,000 total, but the board can ask state lawmakers to approve a higher amount.

"In one sense the money will really help him rebuild his life," said Heather Lewis Donnell, Stinson's attorney. "On the other hand, to put a figure on the loss he suffered is really difficult."

Stinson was the victim of bad timing and questionable testimony.

He was 21 when he was convicted in the 1984 slaying of a Milwaukee woman whose nearly naked body was found bloody and beaten in an alley near her home. Police canvassed the area the morning after the killing and arrested Stinson because they said he couldn't adequately explain his whereabouts the night before, Innocence Project lawyer Byron Lichstein said during a 2009 interview. An odontologist determined that Stinson's bite matched those on the victim.

That was a ridiculous claim, Stinson said. His ongoing lawsuit against the city, two police officers and a dentist who testified at trial says he was missing a tooth where the bite marks indicated a tooth should have been, and he had an intact one where the perpetrator didn't.

Still, he was convicted after two forensic odontologists testified that his teeth were a match.

The Innocence Project, which works to clear wrongly convicted inmates, convinced a judge to overturn Stinson's conviction in 2008. The group raised questions about the dubious bite-mark testimony and released newer tests showing that DNA from saliva on the victim's sweater didn't match Stinson's.

Read the rest here.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=131883765

Waupun CI: Life to "improve" for some Wisconsin inmates

2010-09-29T11:48:00.000-07:00

APNewsBreak: Life to improve for some Wis. inmates

By RYAN J. FOLEY (AP) – Sep 2, 2010

MADISON, Wis. — Life is getting better for some of Wisconsin's most dangerous and worst-behaving prisoners.

To settle lawsuits filed by inmates, state officials have agreed to make wide-ranging changes to the segregation unit at the maximum-security Waupun Correctional Institution to make it easier for them to sleep, exercise and communicate.

The 180 inmates who are housed there because they violated prison rules or were deemed a security risk to the general population will be getting new windows, magazines and even Hacky Sacks, according to settlements signed last month and obtained by The Associated Press.

The Department of Corrections said Thursday the changes will cost more than $60,000, and the settlements award the inmates and their attorneys an additional $113,000 in fees and damages.

Inmates Matthew R. Schumacher and Shaun J. Matz had sued, arguing that the conditions in the cells were so isolating and harsh they violated the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment and worsened their mental illnesses. Each had tried to kill himself at Waupun, which a state audit released last year found had the highest suicide rate of all state prisons.

Both had complained that fluorescent night lights that are constantly on for security purposes made it hard for them to sleep, and they were not allowed to cover their eyes without facing discipline. They said the frosted glass windows in their cells didn't allow them to see outside or even discern what time of day it was.

The two also said their four hours of "recreation" per week consisted of going to small cages where there was no exercise equipment and that were freezing cold in the winter. (Their prison-issued coats were also stored in the cold cages). They said they couldn't have photographs of loved ones, couldn't read magazines, couldn't communicate with other inmates or buy basic supplies from the canteen.

All that will change under the settlement, which avoids an expensive class-action lawsuit like ones that have been filed against other state prisons in recent years over harsh conditions.

"These are significant changes that will improve the conditions of confinement for all prisoners in the segregation unit at Waupun," said Gregory Everts of Quarles & Brady law firm, one of the attorneys who represented the inmates. "Our goal was to improve the conditions for prisoners who suffer from serious mental illness. We credit the state for making these changes, but I think there's still more work to be done."

Read more here. (bold is WPV´s)

Recession reaches inside prison walls

2010-08-08T12:06:00.000-07:00

SPECIAL REPORT, PART 1:
Recession reaches inside prison walls

BY COLLEEN KOTTKE • The Reporter
August 8, 2010

WAUPUN — Inmate Don Patterson hopes his job in the metal stamping department takes him far from the limestone walls surrounding Waupun Correctional Institution.

Although he will never make more than $1 an hour as the lead painter in the Badger State Industries shop that produces license plates for the state of Wisconsin, Patterson considers himself to be one of the lucky ones.

However, the impact of a tepid economy could keep inmates like Patterson from acquiring vocational work skills that play a key role in keeping released
convicts from re-offending.

Already, job orders from state agencies depending on goods from BSI have slowed down, forcing Department of Corrections' officials to scale back operations at the 15 industries within 11 correctional facilities throughout the state, including Waupun.

"Two years ago, we had 110-plus inmates employed with Badger State Industries," said WCI Warden Michael Thurmer. "We're limited by state law from selling to anyone other than government agencies, the state university system and non-profits. And
with the state budget being the way it is, there's no additional funding to replace office furniture and things like that, so our orders are down."

Without those jobs created by BSI, Thurmer said the number of jobless inmates could increase further in the institution that houses 1,250 inmates.

"Right now, we have over 400 inmates that don't have a job or a programming assignment," Thurmer said.

The nation's unemployment crisis is reaching far inside prison walls on the federal level as well.

Since 2008, thousands of inmates have lost their jobs as federal authorities shutter and scale back operations at prison recycling, furniture, cable and
electronics assembly factories to try to make up $65 million in losses.

Slightly more than 7,000 federal prisoners have been cut from the work rolls in the past two years, and up to 800 more are expected to be dropped in the next several months, according to Federal Prison Industries records.

More than money

Patterson is one of 84 inmates housed at the state's oldest prison who is employed through BSI, a vocational and work skills development program established in 1913 as a way to provide inmates the opportunity to develop skills and the work ethic
they need upon their release.

Those hoping to secure a job in the prison's metal stamping department, metal furniture or office systems department must go through an actual a application and interview process for the coveted jobs just like their counterparts out in society..

Although the jobs start with pay at 20 cents an hour, prisoners who earn efficiency and productivity incentives can earn up to $1 an hour.
For those inmates with earnings, a percentage of wages can be taken out for restitution and child support costs, with the remainder going into the
inmate's account to be used for personal items.

More important than money, inmates are learning a variety of skills that will go a long way in helping them overcome the odds of finding a job on the outside once they're released from prison. BSI provides inmates with skills in machinery operation, production and handling raw materials, as well as inventory and quality control.

"Those who are certified in welding through one of our vocational programs sponsored by MPTC can put those skills to use in an actual job setting
through BSI," Thurmer said.

A couple of years ago, the prison added a caveat to the hiring process for BSI: inmates seeking a job must have a high school diploma or a HSED.

"Because of this, the number of inmates who have received their HSED has increased significantly," Thurmer said. "This requirement promotes to them just how important that HSED is once they're released into the community."

Sense of frustration

Thurmer said there was a long waiting list of inmates that exceeds the total number of BSI jobs available. Many who have already cleared the hurdles of obtaining an HSED and a certification through the vocational programs find themselves
waiting and waiting — and becoming clearly frustrated.

"They don't understand that the economy is sluggish out in the community and is impacting how many orders we get in," Thurmer said. "They've done everything that's been asked of them in order to get into position to be hired by BSI, and we don't
have jobs for them. And it becomes a morale issue."

Bryan Lowry, president of the federal prison system employees association, said there are fears that cuts could spark inmate unrest in already-overcrowded
institutions where jobs — however menial — have kept prisoners occupied.

"This is a big concern for us," said Lowry, referring to the increase in inmate assaults on prison workers.

Thurmer says that decreased job opportunities have also impacted the morale inside of his prison.

"Anytime you have inmates in unassigned status where they're not engaged in programming or work, it can become a security issue. Every inmate that we can get out of the cell and keep active is a positive from a morale standpoint," Thurmer said.

Inmates fortunate to have learned a skill and developed a good work ethic behind prison walls stand a better chance of successfully reintegrating back into society once released, Thurmer said.

"(Inmates) have something in hand along with real work experience that they can hand to an employer, making them more likely to be able to secure a position," Thurmer said. "It's essential for us to give them the tools they need to be successful when they go back out into the community. If we don't, the chances for success for these men and women are very slim."

BADGER STATE INDUSTRIES

Badger State Industries is the Wisconsin Department of Corrections training and work skills development program.
While teaching manufacturing and production techniques to inmate employees, BSI provides products to state, county, municipal and non-profit agencies.

BSI operates 15 industries within 11 correctional facilities across the state, producing license plates, office furniture for state offices and the University of
Wisconsin, signage for state highways and parks, and upholstery products.
While many prisons operate taxpayer-funded vocational programs, the Bureau of Correctional Enterprises, which includes BSI, is self-supporting.
The prison farms at Fox Lake and Waupun correctional institutions provide milk for the DOC. The milk is processed at the Waupun Dairy Plant near Burke Corrections Center in Waupun.
Taycheedah Correctional Institution in Fond du Lac employs female inmates in screen print, embroidery and sublimation industries. Office systems, metal furniture and license plates are produced at Waupun Correctional Institution.

PRODUCTS
To see products produced at state correctional facilities, visit www.buybsi.com/im
ages/PDF/MapofIndustries.pdf.

Source: FDL Reporter

No decision reached on closing a male juvenile facility

2010-07-05T11:05:00.000-07:00

But panel leans toward shutting Ethan Allen

By Mike Johnson of the Journal Sentinel

Posted: June 21, 2010

Madison - A governor-appointed committee charged with recommending whether to close one of the state's two male juvenile correctional facilities to help erase a budget deficit could not come to an agreement on whether to close Ethan Allen or Lincoln Hills schools.

The sentiment of the 11-member committee was to recommend closing Ethan Allen in the Town of Delafield in Waukesha County and consolidate it with Lincoln Hills. But the panel fell one vote short of the six-vote majority needed to send the recommendation on to Gov. Jim Doyle and Department of Corrections Secretary Rick Raemisch.

The vote to close Ethan Allen was 5-3.

A similar vote to recommend shuttering Lincoln Hills in northern Wisconsin and combine operations at Ethan Allen failed. Only three people voted in favor of that option.

Three Circuit Court judges who serve on the Governor's Juvenile Corrections Review Committee abstained from the vote. Two of the judges, Mary Triggiano of Milwaukee County Circuit Court and Neal Nielsen of Vilas County Circuit Court, were not at the meeting, but Judge Glenn Yamahiro, of Milwaukee County, said he was authorized to abstain on their behalf. Yamahiro told committee co-chairs Jim Moeser and Greg Lewis that the three thought they could offer advice to the panel, but that the decision on whether to shutter a juvenile facility should be left to other branches of the government.

The five members who voted to recommend the closure of Ethan Allen said they thought Lincoln Hills was a better-operated facility and the staff there was working together more cohesively.

"My gut feeling is staff at Lincoln are pulling on the same end of the rope," said committee member John Burmaster, a retired educator from Gleason.

But two committee members, the Rev. Greg Lewis of St. Gabriel's Church, Milwaukee, and Bishop Charles McClelland of Word of Hope Ministries, Milwaukee, said Ethan Allen should remain open because about 70% of the juveniles incarcerated at Ethan Allen and Lincoln Hills are from southeast Wisconsin.

Closing Ethan Allen would make it difficult for family members of those incarcerated to make the 2 1/2-hour trip to Lincoln Hills for visits.

Family visits are important to rehabilitation efforts, they said.

"One thing we can't do is move that 70% of the population to Lincoln Hills," said Lewis, the committee's co-chair.

But those who supported closing Ethan Allen said family visits, which are low at both sites, should be given less weight in the decision-making process.

The state Division of Juvenile Corrections is facing a $25 million budget deficit over the next two years and is looking for ways to cut spending. The state could save between $13 million and $14 million by closing one of the male juvenile facilities.

State officials say consolidating the male juvenile detention centers must be explored because the male youth arrest rate is down 22% since 2001 and court-ordered commitments have plummeted. The average daily population fell by about 35% between 2001 and 2008, according to department statistics.

Shuttering one of the facilities would put some people out of work, although the exact number is not known. Ethan Allen employs 232 people, while Lincoln Hills employs 193. State officials said Monday that about 100 workers would need to be added to one of the facilities if the other were to close.

Doyle formed the committee in April, and it has been reviewing the male juvenile institutions over the last two months, including visiting each site.

The panel, which concluded that the state cannot afford to keep both institutions open, plans to issue a final report to Raemisch, who is expected to forward it to Doyle by the end of the month.

After the meeting, Raemisch said the state probably will have to make a decision soon on what to do with the juvenile institutions. Population numbers continue to drop and something must be done because of the projected deficit, he said.

Raemisch said the 5-3 vote to close Ethan Allen was something state officials will take into consideration as they move forward.

After the meeting, Moeser said closing one of the facilities is still on the table.

"I think you saw strong support that we can't maintain both of them, either fiscally or programmatically," he said.

Costs for housing juveniles have risen from about $187 a day in 2005 to $270 this year, according to the department.

Victory for Transgender People in Wisconsin Prisons

2010-06-08T21:37:00.000-07:00

Jun 7th, 2010
James Esseks, LGBT Project ACLU

The ACLU LGBT Project recently got a great decision (PDF) on a transgender rights issue from a federal court in Wisconsin. The result and the reasoning are a welcome sign that courts are starting to take transgender rights more seriously, and all the more heartening since the case arises in a prison context.

Prison doctors in Wisconsin, as in some other state prison systems, have for some time provided hormone therapy for some transgender prisoners, since hormones are part of the accepted medical treatment for many transgender people. Back in 2005, after the Wisconsin legislature got wind of this practice, it passed the "Inmate Sex Change Prevention Act," which barred state prisons from providing hormone therapy or sex reassignment surgery to transgender prisoners. The new law over-rode the medical judgment of prison doctors and cut off hormone treatment. The ACLU, in partnership with Lambda Legal, sued immediately, securing a preliminary ruling that any prisoners already on hormone therapy could continue their treatments. Senior Staff Attorney John Knight, along with ACLU of Wisconsin Legal Director Larry Dupuis and lawyers from Lambda Legal, tried the case in the fall of 2007.

It took a few years to get a decision, but it was worth the wait. The federal trial court struck the statute down on two separate constitutional bases. First, the court held that the law violated the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment of prisoners. The Eighth Amendment does not require first-rate medical care for prisoners, but it does require prisons to provide adequate medical care based on the individual needs of each prisoner. But as the court recognized here, the Wisconsin law actually prevents prison doctors from prescribing care that is medically necessary for some prisoners. Prison doctors, rather than Wisconsin’s legislators, should be deciding what care the state’s prisoners need.

The Eighth Amendment decision adds to a small but growing body of law recognizing that transition-related health care is medically necessary and that policies banning these treatments are unconstitutional.

We also argued that the law violated the Equal Protection Clause because it treated transgender prisoners differently for no logical reason. The state’s asserted reason for the ban on hormone therapy was that cutting transgender women prisoners off from hormones would decrease their feminine appearance and therefore decrease the risk of sexual assault by other prisoners. Although it is all too common for prisons to fail in their duty to protect transgender prisoners from violence and abuse, it was startling to see the government argue that it needed to deny necessary medical care in order to "protect" these prisoners. Courts that were uncomfortable with transgender people might have accepted that explanation as sufficient under the very deferential standard courts usually use for evaluating prison rules under the Constitution. But here the court focused on the fact that the state’s own prison security expert admitted that it was "an incredible stretch" to think that preventing some transgender prisoners from getting hormones would prevent future sexual assaults. He explained that hormone therapy "may or may not . . . have something to do with physical appearance," which is just "one of many ingredients that may contribute to something that supports sexual attraction from one inmate to another which may or may not arise in the form of sexual assault."

Such a clear-headed, logical, fact-based approach to the issue is a sign of the power of the Equal Protection Clause to expose bias in government. That courts are now able to get past the discomfort that many people feel about transgender people and apply such clear, dispassionate logic gives me great hope for the future and for other contexts in which transgender people are treated unfairly.

Link to article Here

Wisconsin's overcrowded prisons aren't rehabilitating inmates

2010-04-12T01:47:00.000-07:00

Want to lower the prison population? Don't build more beds, build lives
Emily's Post: Wisconsin's overcrowded prisons aren't rehabilitating inmates

Isthmus Daily Page

Emily Mills on Thursday 03/04/2010 9:04 am

A new report says that Wisconsin needs to spend $1.2 billion to upgrade its prison facilities, including adding 8,900 beds to help with overcrowding.

The prison population in our state is somewhere around 22,000. According to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics, "In 2008, over 7.3 million people were on probation, in jail or prison, or on parole at year-end--3.2% of all U.S. adult residents or 1 in every 31 adults."

The U.S. has the highest documented incarceration rate in the world. Even taking into consideration those countries that don't properly report the number of people it locks up, the numbers in America are staggering. Prison overpopulation has become a very real, very urgent problem in most states, so I can't say that it's a surprise to hear about it happening right here in Wisconsin.
That it's not unexpected, however, doesn't make it any less appalling.

The problem, of course, is that this is a complicated problem with a dizzying array of contributing factors. And everyone has a different opinion about how to best go about solving it. Some folks who fancy themselves real hard asses like to talk about privatizing the prison system to reduce costs, as well as throwing the biggest book at even the most non-violent of offenders. Others fall on the exact opposite end of the spectrum.

Me? I land somewhere decidedly in the middle. I think we put too many people in jail, and I think we operate our jails too much like points-of-no-return as opposed to the houses of reform they were supposed to be.

In terms of population, this is definitely a case where less is more.
The fact that some one million inmates are in for non-violent offenses, too, offends me. Simply having the bad fortune of living with or visiting someone involved in the drug trade can be enough to put you behind bars for the better part of your life. It just doesn't make sense. Don't believe me? Read a few of the personal stories listed on the Families Against Mandatory Minimums website.

Our sentencing rules need serious reform. So do our attitudes about things like marijuana, as well as toward addiction in general. Throwing people with a disease, or a relatively harmless plant, into jail is both unjust and wasteful. Taking a long, hard look at our sentencing policies would likely go a long way toward putting a dent in our bloated prison population.

What might also help is a solid early release program for non-violent offenders who do deserve some jail time. Gov. Doyle attempted to do that when he passed Wisconsin Act 28 as part of last year's budget. The provision was ostensibly supposed to create a system of early-release in order to help stem the increases in inmate population we've been seeing in recent years.
And while it does end the double-bunking policy that has caused so much trouble (a good move), it still misses the mark. The problem with the act was that it attempted the early release policy without much structure or forethought.

As pointed out at the time by Zachary Wisniewski at Blogging Blue, the types of offenses now eligible for early release simply don't make sense:
...under the new early release provisions, an individual convicted of aggravated battery to an unborn child is statutorily eligible to earn early release from prison as well as an early discharge from extended supervision once released from prison, while an individual convicted of a nonviolent offense such as misconduct in public office is not eligible for early release from prison or an early discharge from extended supervision. Now don't get me wrong – I'm not arguing misconduct in public office – or any other felony, for that matter – aren't serious offenses, but they're certainly not as seriously assaultive as a crime like aggravated battery to an unborn child.

There's a full list of the other offenses that fall under the new early release program at the same post linked above. They include things like stalking, false imprisonment, and physical abuse of a child. Those are decidedly not non-violent offenses and I have no idea how they ended up on this list.

But say we did (eventually) get the early-release program right. That's not enough. We need to couple that with comprehensive rehabilitation and reentry programs that help people returning to society with things like education, job preparedness, finding a place to live, etc. Just turning people out onto the streets does little to nothing to prevent recidivism—which, after all, is supposed to be the point of putting people in jail for less than a life sentence.
Thankfully, there are such programs in place in many of our state's detention facilities: everything from a successful MATC accredited horticultural program to high school equivalency programs and even a prison library program.

Kyle Nabilcy, a prison librarian, has witnessed the success of the program first-hand. "Anecdotally," he notes, "I can tell you that very few of the men who have worked for me as inmate clerks have returned to a similar or higher security level of incarceration, or reoffended. I can only think of two out of probably 30-35 in almost seven years."

Nabilcy also went on to suggest a different use for any state funds earmarked for prisons. "I would love to see some of that money going into improving the technological infrastructure of DOC. More and more of the educational programs are digital, and our resources are getting more and more out of date every day."

Once again, prevention and education seem to be the most important tools for fixing the problem.

Progressive Wisconsin? State Marked by Empty Factories, Full Prisons

2010-04-10T11:09:00.000-07:00

From: In These Times
April 5, 2010

State has highest black male incarceration rate in country; twelve times the rate of white men.
By Roger Bybee

Wisconsin has long enjoyed a reputation as an enlightened, progressive state.

Its reputation goes back to the populist flavor of the state constitution, the strong movement for the abolition of slavery, the staunchly anti-corporate governor (and later senator) "Fighting Bob" LaFollette, the building of powerful labor and socialist movements, and one of the nation's very best university systems.

But a visit to my hometown of Racine for a meeting this week was a painful reminder of how the city and state are moving toward a very different model of society: the mass destruction of family-supporting jobs coupled with the mass incarceration of thousands of young men who grew up in deprived, disorganized neighborhoods shattered by de-industrialization.

GHOSTLY FACTORIES—AND A MASSIVE NEW JAIL

Unemployment in Racine is now 16.7%, reflecting both the toll of the Great Recession and the permanent loss of about 13,500 manufacturing jobs between 1979 and 2007, 42% of the city's industrial jobs. My hometown is filled with ghostly empty factories and vast empty, flat fields of brown grass where factories once turned out tractors, garden equipment, children's Golden Books, machine tools, auto parts, farm machinery, and on and on.

In industrial towns like Racine, factories have been emptied out, with no family-supporting jobs to replace them. Meanwhile a flock of new prisons and jails have been filled up, providing jobs for some ex-factory workers and a cell for others.

Racine has a new $30 million jail that holds about six times as many prisoners as the one it replaced, which was completed only in 1980. A juvenile corrections facility now sits where the Rainfair clothing factory stood before its new owners sent the jobs to China.

PRISON POPULATION INCREASES NEARLY EIGHT-FOLD

With the path to legitimate success blocked for so many, it is only predictable that a certain percentage of young men, in particular, would be drawn to criminal activity. But unlike Wisconsin's neighbor, Minnesota, which has only about one-third the number of prisoners despite roughly similar demographics and population, Wisconsin has not developed a major system of non-prison alternatives to help young men complete their educations, obtain training and jobs, and find a non-criminal path for their lives.

Statewide, the prison population has exploded from 2,973 in 1970 to 23,112 at the end of last year, representing nearly an eight-fold increase.

A sizable portion of these prisoners come from six counties which have all suffered devastating losses in industrial jobs: Milwaukee, Dane, Racine, Kenosha, Rock and Waukesha. The city of Milwaukee lost 65% of its industrial jobs between 1977 and 2002, with leading local corporations like Johnson Controls, Master Lock and AO Smith coming to employ more workers in Mexico than Milwaukee. In Rock County, Janesville—which lost its huge General Motors assembly plant at the end of 2008—has an official unemployment rate of 13.1% and nearby Beloit has the state's highest jobless rate of 18.3%.
Wisconsin carries the dubious distinction of having the highest rate of African-American male incarceration of any state in the nation. African Americans are incarcerated at 12 times the rate of whites.
At every point in the downward slide toward prison, African-Americans find less favorable treatment than whites.

The cost of the state's vast expansion of prisons and jails has meant a major drain on the revenues that once supported Wisconsin's excellent university system, forcing a quadrupling of tuition over the last 20 years, according to Jay Burseth, president of the UW-Milwaukee Students Association. It has also triggered increasingly sharp struggles by UW students to hold down tuition, as covered last month in these pages.

As economist Michael Rosen has pointed out, the link between rising prison expenditures and declining educational opportunities is clear-cut. Even while crime has been declining, the number of prisoners kept climbing:

Between 1987 and 2007, Wisconsin actually cut its support for higher education by 6%. Only 6 states reduced their investment in higher ed by more. During the same period, Wisconsin increased corrections spending by 251%, 8th highest nation, despite a declining crime rate.

MORE PRISON SPENDING MEANS HIGHER TUITON, LESS ACCESS

Ironically, the cost of incarcerating of mostly poor young men has directly and a severely reduced the opportunities for young people to stay out of trouble, get a good education and lead a productive life. The diversion of state funds from colleges and technical schools to the prison system has forced a much heavier burden of tuition on those who would like to attend college.

Rosen notes the conclusions of a study committee composed of representatives of Wisconsin's university system and technical colleges: "Wisconsin students from lower income families have less access to a college education than in the U.S. as a whole."

According to Prof. Pam Oliver of UW-Madison, a leading scholar who has done extensive research on the metastazing of Wisconsin's prison population, there has not yet been any systematic, full-scale study of the relationship between de-industrialization and the huge explosion in incarceration in Wisconsin.
But this linkage between the community devastation represented by the state's vacant factories and the crowded jails and prisons now seems brutally clear. The connection stands as a major indictment of the shameful economic and social policies shaped by major corporations' decisions and the policy choices of government officials unwilling to challenge corporate power.

http://www.inthesetimes.com/working/entr/5774/progressive_wisconsin_state_m arked_by_empty_factories_full_prisons

Gov. Jim Doyle signs public defender bill, 30 others

2010-03-17T12:52:00.001-07:00

By Patrick Marley and Jason Stein of the Journal Sentinel

Posted: March 15, 2010

Madison — Poor people will have an easier time getting a public defender under a bill signed Monday by Gov. Jim Doyle.

The law changes the eligibility standards for securing public defenders starting in July 2011. The plan will cost the state about $4.1 million a year but will save counties an estimated $6 million a year.
Now, Wisconsin has the nation's stingiest eligibility standards for getting a public defender, according to the National Legal Aid & Defender Association. People charged with a felony do not qualify for a public defender if, having two children, they are paid $7.25 an hour, have $300 in cash and a car worth $2,000, according to the state public defender's office.

The bill Doyle signed will allow public defenders for anyone earning up to 115% of the federal poverty guidelines, with up to $30,000 equity in their home, a $10,000 car and $2,500 in other assets.
Judges often appoint private attorneys for poor defendants who don't qualify for public defenders. Private attorneys cost more than public defenders and are paid by counties rather than the state. Supporters of the new law say it will save taxpayers $2 million a year when all costs are taken into account.

Letter to Mr Rick Raemisch, Secretary of Wi Department of Corrections, about Steven Stewart

2010-03-12T01:25:00.000-08:00

This letter was sent recently to the Secretary of Wisconsin Department of Corrections, to point out some new abuses and unhelpful acts by staff. We recently heard as well that Steven has another infection. Steven needs to be paroled and cared for at home, so that he can get his life back, after having been in prison for 23 years while not having carried out the crime for which he was convicted, more than 10 of which have been spent in solitary confinement.

To: Mr. Rick Raemisch, Secretary
Wisconsin Department of Corrections
3099 East Washington Avenue
P.O. Box 7925
Madison, WI 53707-7925
USA

March 2nd, 2010

Dear Mr Raemisch,

My name is A.P., I am a friend of a prisoner in Wisconsin called Steven D. Stewart (DOC # 143599, held in WSPF) since at least 4 years, and I visited him last year from Holland.Mr Steven Stewart has a serious illness: MS, and many physical complaints stemming from that, as well as from being locked up in solitary confinement since many years, I mean 14 years. Mr Stewart will see the parole board again for the second time in May of this year. He is very ill and it is time that the facts are faced by the department of corrections: that he is no threat to anyone, he badly needs medical care, and he needs to be on his way out towards rehabilitation.

Instead, on Jan 31st or Feb 6th, Mr Stewart was locked in a “stripcage” for 3 hours, all his mail was taken, and now he is in another cell with no other prisoner near to have any contact with. Staff at WSPF tell him he has mail, yet they do not bring it to him.Why is Mr Stewart being treated so roughly? Why is he not being treated for his rectal prolapse? What if he dies in that cell, will you claim responsibility for his lack of medical care? What will you tell his family? Why has Mr Stewart been inundated with conduct reports ever since he spoke out against being mistreated in 2005? Surely the way Mr Stewart has been treated has nothing to do with “corrections”?

I hope that you can provide the answers to these questions I have, since I do not understand how this very ill man can be in a supermax prison for years on end with no program to help him out of there, nor any meaningful medical care. People who support Mr Stewart on the outside have for years tried to get medical care for Mr Stewart, and to get him to a more appropriate level of incarceration for someone with complex medical illness. Yet, our calls have gone unnoticed it seems. Mr Stewart still has no medical care and he is still being kept in a place where he could die at any time, because he has infections that are precarious in his situation.

Also, he receives psychological and physical harassment on a daily basis. How much can a person take? The judge did not order the state to have Mr Stewart undergo such torture on top of being incarcerated.Thank you for your time in listening to me. I hope you will ensure the safety, dignity, respect and care that Mr Steven Stewart (and all those who are being held in prisons under your supervision) is entitled to as a fellow human being.

Yours faithfully,
A. P.
Address: ...The Netherlands

Cc: Steven D. Stewart, #143599
ACLU Wisconsin
Humanity for Prisoners, Michigan

The Parole Commission in Wisconsin

2010-03-11T01:32:00.000-08:00

From the Friends of Steven Stewart:

Steven Stewart will be coming before the Wisconsin Parole Commission in May of this year. We want to help Steven parole, therefore we have to write letters of recommendation to the commission. In searching for the right contact information, we found this very old piece about the Parole Commission (dating from before 2003 if you read closely).

We will be contacting the parole commission and ask them to see what is happening to people in Wisconsin who are eligible for parole, but who are barred from pursuing an education, training, work release program, let alone medical care. Who are locked up in the supermax indefinitely with no help from society, no rehabilitation, nothing. And we all, the tax payers, pay for this inadequate system of warehousing people. The lack of parole possibilities and help to move forward is hurting us all.

Here is what it says on the website of WI Department of Corrections about the Parole Commission: The Parole Commission in Wisconsin

Ms. Deirdre Morgan,
Chair 2701
International Lane
Suite 201
P.O. Box 7960
Madison, WI 53707-7960
Phone (608) 240-7280
Facsimile: (608) 240-7299
Email: parole.comm@doc.state.wi.us

Commissioners
Fred Melendez
Dennis Meier
M. Jeanne Huibregtse
Steven Landreman
Jayne Hackbarth
Sharon Williams
Fran Paul

The Parole Commission is the final authority for granting discretionary paroles or early release from prison. The Commission conducts parole interviews with eligible inmates sentenced to the custody of the Wisconsin Department of Corrections.

A Commissioner meets with an inmate individually and makes an independent decision on the possibility of a parole grant.

The Governor appoints the Commission's chairperson with the advice and consent of the Senate for a two-year term. The current Chairperson's term expires March 1, 2003.

The Wisconsin Parole Commission is attached to the Department of Corrections for administrative purposes but it implements its statutory responsibilities independently. Current commission members are selected by the Chairperson.

How Does an Offender Receive a Parole in Wisconsin?

Under the sentencing law in existence previous to Truth-in-Sentencing, an inmate becomes eligible for parole consideration after serving one-quarter of his or her sentences. At the Parole Interview, a Parole Commissioner will gather information needed to determine if the offender will be granted a parole.

Parole Interviews are conducted at the institution where the offender is incarcerated. There are no "courtrooms" at institutions, so the rooms chosen for these hearings are usually offices or small conference rooms. An offender granted parole will be released and will not need another Parole Interview.

If the Parole Interview does not result in a Parole grant, there will be a comment from the Parole Commissioner as to when the offender may be eligible for Parole again. This is called a defer. For example, offenders may be given a "12-month defer" or a "24-month defer", etc., and their Parole Eligibility Dates (PED) will change accordingly. This means that the offender will not again be eligible for parole until that amount of time has passed. Other than the first Parole Interview (which occurs one month before the PED), all other Parole Interviews will occur approximately two months before the new Parole Eligibility Dates.

In cases where a judge has stipulated that an offender has no Parole Eligibility Date, the offender will actually serve their entire sentence, without any consideration for Parole.

For offenders that have committed a felony on or after 12/31/99 under the new Truth-in-Sentencing law, early parole consideration is not available. In cases such as this, the judge determines the length of time served in prison and the length of time on Extended Supervision.

Parole Commission members review many things when considering parole for an offender. Some examples of things reviewed include offense(s) committed, previous convictions, time served and time remaining on the sentence, letters from victims/witnesses or concerned parties, program participation, and any reports of misconduct while incarcerated.

Criteria for Parole

The following criteria are considered for parole consideration:
- Reached the parole eligibility date in his or her sentence.
- Served sufficient time for punishment of his or her crime(s).
- Shown positive changes in behavior as well as documented progress in programming, treatment and/or educational achievement.
- A viable parole plan which offers the offender realistic opportunities for a stable residence, employment, and programming if needed.
- An acceptably reduced level of risk to the public. (The criteria for determining risk include past criminal and incarceration record, probation and parole violations, security classification, and any unmet treatment or programs needs.)

Truth-In-Sentencing

Under the new Truth-in-Sentencing laws, any person who commits a felony offense on or after December 31, 1999, and is sentenced to at least one year of confinement in prison will not be eligible for early parole. They are required to serve the entire sentence imposed by the Court. However, offenders who violate prison rules may have additional days added to the confinement portion of their sentence.

Upon completion of the confinement portion of their sentence, an offender must serve a period of extended supervision in the community under the supervision of a Department of Corrections Community Corrections agent. At the time of sentencing, a judge determines the length of confinement and the length of extended supervision an offender must serve. By law, the length of extended supervision must be at least ¼ of the time of confinement.

What is the difference between Probation and Parole?

Probation is a decision handed down by the judge at trial. It may be in lieu of jail time or in combination with some jail time. It allows the convicted person to live in the community for a specified period of time under the supervision of a probation officer. Depending on the circumstances and the seriousness of the crime, the judge can specify restrictions on the offender's activities during the probationary period. If an offender violates the conditions or rules of probation, he or she may be sentenced to imprisonment by the judge. This is known as revoking the probation or revocation.

Parole is the early release of an inmate who has served part of his or her sentence. The inmate is allowed to return to the community under the conditions of parole and the supervision of parole agent. Violation of these conditions can result in a revocation of the parole and re-imprisonment for the offender.

The decision to grant parole is the responsibility of the Parole Commission.

ACLU Lawsuit Charging Inadequate Care At Women’s Prison To Proceed

2010-02-23T13:13:00.000-08:00

ACLU Lawsuit Charging Inadequate Care At Women’s Prison To Proceed
Federal Judge Rejects State Request To Dismiss Class Action Lawsuit
FOR IMMEDIATE ERELEASE
November 25, 2009

CONTACT:
Will Matthews, ACLU National, (212) 549-2582 or 2666; media@aclu.org

Chris Ahmuty, ACLU of Wisconsin, (414) 272-4032, ext.13; cahmuty@aclu-wi.org

MILWAUKEE – A federal judge has denied a request by Wisconsin state officials to dismiss a class action lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Wisconsin and the law firm of Jenner & Block charging that grossly deficient health care and mental health treatment jeopardizes the lives of women prisoners at a state prison.

In a sternly-worded ruling, U.S. District Court Judge Rudolph T. Randa said there “is a great deal of evidence demonstrating that there are systemic and gross deficiencies in staffing, facilities and procedures” at the Taycheedah Correctional Institution (TCI), Wisconsin’s largest women’s prison, and that the evidence suggests that state prison officials “are and have been subjectively aware of the risks that are posed by the administration of medical and mental health care at
TCI.” Judge Randa described the state’s attempt to have the case dismissed as “curious” given that the state’s own expert witness described health care at TCI as a system “designed to let people ‘fall through the cracks.’”

“I am pleased that the court is allowing our litigation to proceed and look forward to bringing the case to trial,” said Gabriel Eber, staff attorney with the ACLU National Prison Project. “Without court-ordered changes, women at TCI will continue to suffer needlessly in a system that still fails to comply with the requirements of the Constitution.”

In a first-of-its-kind class action lawsuit filed in 2006 on behalf of women prisoners in Wisconsin, the ACLU charges that the state prison system puts the lives of women prisoners at risk through grossly deficient health care, provides far inferior mental health treatment as compared to men and fails to provide reasonable accommodations to allow prisoners with disabilities to access basic prison services. Judge Randa’s decision allows all three claims to proceed to trial.

The lawsuit asks the court to order reforms to the system so that constitutionally adequate care is made available. In April 2009, Judge Randa entered a preliminary injunction ordering that significant changes be made immediately to TCI’s dangerous system of administering medications to prisoners.

The ACLU’s lawsuit charges that the prison’s health system violates the Constitution’s Eighth Amendment prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. The lawsuit also charges the health system violates the Fourteenth Amendment guarantee of equal protection, because the women receive mental health care far inferior to what male prisoners receive. The ACLU says in the lawsuit that these lapses in mental health care occur against the backdrop of a prison system that has a suicide rate of twice the national average.

“Judge Randa’s decision recognizes a ‘mountain of evidence’ showing the continued failure of state officials to fix a system that has been in crisis for years,” said Larry Dupuis, Legal Director of the ACLU of Wisconsin. “It is far past time that state officials be held accountable.”

The lawsuit names as defendants a number of senior officials in the state corrections department as well as Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle.

A copy of Judge Randa’s ruling is available online at: www.aclu.org/prisoners-rights/flynn-et-al-vdoyle-
et-al-decision-and-order

A copy of the ACLU complaint is available online at: www.acluwi.
org/wisconsin/police_prisons/TCI%20Complaint%20--%20for%20filing.pdf
--

Democrats want to reduce state’s prison population

2009-12-04T05:32:00.000-08:00

Madison Capital Times: Democrats want to reduce state’s prison population

By STEVEN ELBOW | The Capital Times | selbow@madison.com | Posted: Thursday, December 3, 2009 6:10 am |

Democrats seeking to reduce Wisconsin's prison population are reintroducing a batch of bills vetoed by Gov. Jim Doyle this summer. This is a picture of an inmate at a prison in Arizona, which is considering turning over its prisons to private companies. MATT YORK | Associated Press

This summer, Gov. Jim Doyle made a controversial decision to roll back truth-in-sentencing legislation and let up to 3,000 nonviolent inmates out of prison early to save the state the $29,000 or so it cost to house each of them every year. Fellow Democrats in the Legislature hoped that Doyle would also sign into law measures they introduced to further chip away at the state’s burgeoning prison population, but Doyle vetoed many of them.

Now Democrats are re-introducing those measures. It’s unlikely that they will pass as written, but legislators hope they will provide a starting point to keep the debate going, possibly through several legislative sessions. Doyle, after all, has decided not to run for re-election and will only be in office for another year.

“Obviously because these specific proposals were vetoed, we’re going to have to work with everyone to fashion policies that we can move through the Legislature and have enacted,” says Rep. Joe Parisi, D-Madison, chairman of the Assembly corrections committee.

The measures, introduced in both the Senate and the Assembly, are intended to keep inmates from landing back in prison after they have served their prison sentences but while they remain on extended supervision, which has become a key contributor to the prison population explosion. One provision would cap at 90 days the amount of time an offender would spend in prison for rule violations that don’t constitute a new crime.

According to a study by the Justice Center of the Council on State Governments, a nonpartisan Kentucky-based association, the average stay for such violations in 2007 was 18 months, costing the state $99 million that year.

The Justice Center, which has successfully helped other states, including Kansas and Texas, reduce prison populations, made several other recommendations that Democrats included in the 2009-11 budget. But Doyle vetoed those, saying Department of Corrections officials need a free hand to determine who should get out of prison.

The proposals would have limited the time offenders spend on extended supervision to 75 percent of the time they spend behind bars, required the Department of Corrections to reduce recidivism by 25 percent by 2011 and expanded community-based mental health and job placement services.

While Doyle allowed $10 million for community-based services, Democratic lawmakers wanted $20 million more — $8 million to bolster mental health services for severely mentally ill offenders on parole or extended supervision, and $12 million for transitional employment programs — as another means to keep offenders who have been released from re-offending.

“We have to break the cycle of people being released into the community and being unsuccessful and landing back in our prison,” Parisi says. “That’s the main driver of our prison population right now.”

Truth-in-sentencing legislation in 1999 abolished parole and replaced it with extended supervision, making it mandatory for inmates to serve out their entire sentences. Since then, the prison population has grown by 14 percent to about 22,500 and is projected to climb another 25 percent by 2019 if nothing is done to stop it. The further increase is expected to cost the state $2.5 billion in construction and operating costs.

Some Republicans howled at Doyle’s decision to let nonviolent offenders out of prison before reaching the end of their jail terms, but one key lawmaker says such measures were inevitable.

“At the time truth-in-sentencing was passed, and I voted for it, most knowledgeable people felt that there would be some follow-up legislation to prevent that bill from becoming too expensive,” says state Sen. Glenn Grothman, R-West Bend, the ranking Republican on the Senate corrections committee.

He says he doesn’t go along with law-and-order Republicans who oppose letting anyone out of prison before their sentences are served. And he says Doyle’s move will allow the Department of Corrections to hold the line on the prison population, but do little to reduce it.

“Something should be done,” Grothman says.

But he doesn’t support proposals that would cost more money. For instance, he says, while inmates with jobs are less likely to re-offend, the $20 million for community-based services is unnecessary. The Department of Corrections, he says, already has enough employees to provide those services now.

“I’m sure Doyle did the right thing in vetoing them,” he says of the Justice Reinvestment Initiative proposals. “Obviously we’re broke.”

The Justice Reinvestment Initiative proposals aren’t the only pending legislation that deal with inmates.
Another Assembly bill would allow felons who have been released from prison to vote while they remain on extended supervision. Currently offenders are barred from voting until they have served out their entire sentence.

Parisi says the measure would save money by eliminating the felon lists that poll workers have to use to verify voter eligibility and also reduce lines on Election Day by making the polling process less complicated.
In addition, he says, studies have shown that former inmates who are allowed to vote tend to be less likely to re-offend.

And there’s also a racial justice component, Parisi says. Wisconsin has one of the nation’s worst track records in disproportionately locking up blacks, who make up nearly half of Wisconsin’s prison population while constituting just 6 percent of the state’s population.

“Since the criminal justice system targets blacks, it also disproportionately disenfranchises them,” Parisi says.
The measure has support among many Democrats, who control both houses of the Legislature. All 18 co-sponsors in the Assembly are Democrats as well as four co-sponsors in the Senate. The bill passed the corrections committee on a party-line vote, clearing it for further debate in the full Assembly, but it is unlikely to garner wide bipartisan support.

Rep. Karl Van Roy, R-Green Bay, the ranking Republican on the Assembly corrections committee, was not available for comment. But he told constituents in a statement posted on his website that giving released felons the right to vote would allow them “to forget the reason why they lost their right to vote in the first place.”

“When you choose to commit a serious crime against society and you are found guilty by a court of law, you must forfeit certain rights for a prescribed amount of time in order to repay your debt to society,” he wrote.
Another bill introduced in the Assembly would dent county budgets. It would require that inmate phone charges in county jails not exceed rates charged by the state Department of Corrections.

The bill would come at a time when Dane County has already reduced phone charges for inmates. In 2007, the County Board voted to stop the county from profiting on inmate phone calls, which cost inmates $4.25 for a connection fee plus up to 50 cents a minute. This year, the charges are expected to bring in just over $800,000 for the county, but next year, when the new contract with the jail’s phone service provider, Inmate Calling Solutions, goes into effect, those rates will drop to 33 cents a minute for a local call and the connection fee will be eliminated. That would earn the county about $476,000, the 2010 county budget projects, which officials say is just enough to cover costs.

Under the state bill, the county would have to further reduce its rates to 12 cents a minute for in-state calls and 18 cents a minute for out-of-state calls with no connection fee — the rates currently charged by the Department of Corrections.

If passed, the law would have no impact until the county’s new contract with Inmate Calling Solutions expires in 2012.

At a time when the county is already trying to pinch pennies, the bill, which has had a public hearing but not a committee vote, would put a further burden on county taxpayers, according to Capt. Jeff Teuscher, Dane County jail administrator.

“Someone would have to absorb those costs,” he says. “In all likelihood, if that bill would pass, then that will be Dane County taxpayers.”

INMATE LEGISLATION

A series of bills introduced in both the Senate and the Assembly deal with getting inmates out of prison or keeping them from returning after being released. Provisions would cap at 90 days the amount of time an offender would spend in prison for rule violations that don't constitute a new crime; limit the time offenders spend on extended supervision to 75 percent of the time they spend behind bars; and require the Department of Corrections to reduce recidivism by 25 percent by 2011. Another measure would add $20 million to the budget for community-based mental health and job-training services.

The proposals have virtually no change of passing as written. They were included in the state budget last summer and Gov. Jim Doyle vetoed the limits on prison time, and reduced $30 million Democrats wanted for community-based services to $10 million. But Democrats say re-introducing the bills provides a starting point for compromise measures.

Assembly Bill 353 would allow felons who have been released from prison, but remain on extended supervision, to vote. Currently, offenders are prohibited from voting until they have served their entire sentences.

The measure has Democratic support and passed the Assembly corrections committee on a party-line vote.

Assembly Bill 144 would prohibit county jails from charging inmates more than the state Department of Corrections does for phone calls. The legislation would likely affect revenues at nearly every jail in the state. The office of state Rep. Fred Kessler, D-Milwaukee, the author of the bill, reports that every jail that responded to a survey of phone rates charges more than the new state rates of 12 cents a minute for local calls and 18 cents a minute for out-of-state calls, with no connection fee.

The bill has received a public hearing, and Kessler has added an amendment that would allow current jail phone contracts to expire before the requirement kicks in. But the corrections committee has not voted on the proposal.

Assembly Bill 448 would require those held in a prison, jail or a juvenile facility to pay a portion of medical or dental care, through deductibles, coinsurance, copayments or other charges.

The bill was introduced by Rep. Mark Radcliffe, D-Black River Falls, and has three Democratic and three Republican co-sponsors in the Assembly, plus one Democrat and two Republicans in the Senate. The bill is opposed by Rep. Joe Parisi, D-Madison, the Assembly corrections committee chairman, who is unlikely to allow a hearing on it.

Assembly Bill 345 would prevent the state Department of Corrections from entering into any agreement to house detainees from the Guantanamo Bay naval base. Rep. Dean Kaufert, R-Neenah, who introduced the bill, says it would make Wisconsin a "Terrorist Free Zone."

The proposal has Republican support, but Parisi says the legislation is unnecessary since there has been no talk of housing inmates from Guantanamo Bay in Wisconsin's prisons.

Why deny used books to prisoners in Wisconsin's state prison system?

2009-11-17T10:18:00.000-08:00

Keep books flowing to prisons

By Camy Matthay • November 16, 2009
Greenbay Press Gazette
Why deny used books to inmates in Wisconsin's state prison system?

Wisconsin Books to Prisoners (WBTP), a project of Rainbow Bookstore, is a volunteer nonprofit organization that provides books to prisoners free of charge. Since the project began in 2006, it has put thousands of books into prison cells statewide.

The project currently receives more than 40 book requests a week. These requests show that prisoners love to read, want to learn more about the world, and want to improve their prospects when they get out of prison.

A prisoner at the Green Bay Correctional Institution (GBCI) recently wrote, "I would be grateful if you could send me any books about the construction trade and/or business skills."

"I am interested in any books by or about African Americans. Do you have any books by James Baldwin or Alice Walker?" wrote another prisoner.

The most frequently requested books by prisoners are collegiate dictionaries and thesauruses. The project also frequently gets lists of topics from prisoners who hope some of their interests will be fulfilled.

A recent request, for example, listed the following topics: "1. Beginning Japanese or a Japanese/English dictionary; 2. Barn owls; 3. Vultures or other birds of prey; 4. Ancient Roman society; 5. Ice age animals and humans; 6. Warships of the U.S. from the revolution through WWII; 7. Iron mining, logging, railroads; 3. Something about Upper Peninsula Michigan, 9. Salamanders and amphibians. Thanks for your time," he wrote. "I hope you have something for me. I look forward to hearing from you."

Wisconsin Books to Prisoners was able to fulfill requests like this until May 2008, when the Department of Corrections (DOC) banned the project. After months of negotiations with the DOC, we succeeded in overturning the ban on new books, but the project is still barred from sending used books to prisoners.

The department's justification for the no-used-book policy is that the likelihood of contraband being concealed in used books is greater than that in new books. WBTP thinks this is excessively cautionary, unfairly preventing thousands of prisoners from engaging in much-valued self-education.

Nearly every study on corrections recommends reading in prison as a meaningful way of occupying time behind bars and as a preparation for a successful re-entry into society after incarceration.

The no-used-books policy not only undermines the state's interest in rehabilitating prisoners, it infringes on the Constitutional rights of prisoners to read. The policy also ignores the fact that all prisons in Wisconsin have stringent security procedures for incoming publications.

Ninety-seven percent of prisoners will eventually return to our communities. A policy that denies them meaningful literature, and provokes frustration and bitterness, just lacks common sense.

Wisconsin is the only state banning used books to prisoners.

Camy Matthay is from Madison.
http://www.greenbaypressgazette.com/article/20091116/GPG0602/911160549/1269/GPG06/Keep-books-flowing-to-prisons

Wisconsin Prison Watch Autumn Newsletter

2009-11-16T10:41:00.000-08:00

Our friends from Wisconsin Prison Watch produced another important Newsletter, which we copy here below:

SEPTEMBER 2009 NEWSLETTER

Friends,

First, an apology. Personal matters have interrupted my life and drained some of my energy and fight. With every letter I received asking “where’s my May issue?”, I said to myself, well, I’ll get one out soon so the questions will be answered. But, days turned into weeks and weeks into months and the longer I waited the harder it became to get something on paper. Life on the outside is full of distractions and responsibilities and when we don’t see the inhumanity on a daily basis (through letters) we lose our outrage, we become complacent. The Beast never sleeps, it is continually growing stronger while the few of us who care, get tired and weak. That’s how the system works, that’s why we need lots of fighters.

Anyone who understands the prison issues, knows that all the hoopla about releasing nonviolent offenders doesn’t amount to a hill of beans in the scheme of things. Over policing, career building prosecutions, and harsh sentencing remain the standard. The problem isn’t that prisoners aren’t being released soon enough (well, that’s a problem too) but rather that too many are being locked up to begin with.

Once in, we face another set of stupid reactionary people who’s ideology determines policy. Alfonzo Graham continues to give lengthy defers to guys who were ready to go home long ago; BOCM and PRC continue to place “program needs” on people and then keep them from entering the programs; Wardens and guards taunt and harass prisoners with write-ups for minor infractions, rotating the seg population to make use of all the beds.

In the meantime, politicians posture and weasel word and pass a John Doe “reform” Bill even though they KNOW the reason prisoners file with the courts is because the ICRS is worthless. The complaint system is fraught with nepotism and cronyism where justice and fair play are totally absent.

Hey, but you guys know all this. These have been constant and repeated themes in this newsletter. In fact, this newsletter has held its tongue and curbed its words lately in light of the “changes” that many perceived taking place in this country and state. Many prisoners believed Barak Obama would set a new standard and bring civility and dignity to the way America does business. They hoped that this new way would trickle down to the bottom of the barrel, the prisons. So many were under the spell of Hope-ium that speaking the truth, that Obama is a corporate salesman intent on maintaining empire abroad and repression at home, was out of bounds.

The same Hope-ium addiction afflicts many prisoners regarding the situation here in Wisconsin. The false hope that weasel-wording politicians will reform the prison system in any meaningful way, keeps prisoners pacified and complacent. Just in case you really don’t get it, things ain’t changin’. Punishment, retribution, and violence are the true values the privileged of this country hold and they ain’t giving in. Things won’t change unless YOU make them change. Sucking on that Hope-ium pipe only prolongs the misery. In the mean time, days and weeks and years slip by and the prisons get fuller and the conditions get worse.

That said, Wisconsin’s financial mess is not resolved and more and bigger cuts in all sorts of spending areas will be needed. Prisons are part of the conversation and that’s a good thing. We only wish the motivation was some sort of enlightened thinking instead of financial reality. Word is, some of the old timers with lots of time in, will be released this October. That’s just a rumor at this point so don’t start packing your bags.

Our brother Warren Lilly won a court order halting his forced feeding. The order is stayed while it runs through the appeal process. For those of you who did not receive our January 2009 issue, it is because we ran a piece written by Warren.

Judge Bissonnette actually had himself strapped into a restraint chair to understand the brutality Warren has been subjected to. Judge Bissonnette said in his order, in part, “Certainly, this Court, nor the Wisconsin Court of Appeals, nor the Wisconsin Department of Corrections, should in any way condone any type of mistreatment or torture of an inmate in a Wisconsin correctional facility. This debate should form no part of a discussion about how medical care is to be delivered to a U.S. citizen over his constitutional objection.” In other words, STOP THE TORTURE!!

Another comrade, Harlan Richards has submitted an article on the continued ideologically (and politically) driven parole commission. His research is on the status of lifers but the trends he has teased out of the statistics are similar through every category of parole eligible prisoner. A recent report from the Sentencing Project, Life Without Parole, confirms the trends Harlan reports.

We hope this newsletter helps you sort out the conflicting news and dis-information presented by the DOC and the mainstream press. We hope to continue our efforts to bring critical analysis and revolutionary inspiration but make no promises. We always hold out hope that others will join our effort, providing the needed energy and vision. Thousands of prisoners are released every year and a few have offered assistance when released but the pressure of day to day survival along with the heavy and threatening hand of their POs as left us overwhelmed, stressed out, and tired.

We have engaged the Beast in the courts. Our case #09-C-062-C is moving forward in U.S. District Court WDWI. Hopefully the DOC will fund future newsletters. That will relieve some of our stress and invigorate our spirit. We’ll still be overwhelmed and tired but that’s the nature of battle. Onward!

in solidarity,
WPW

Quote to Ponder: "The press is so powerful in its image-making role, it can make a criminal look like he's the victim and make the victim look like he's the criminal. This is the press, an irresponsible press. If you aren't careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed and loving the people who are doing the oppressing." - Malcolm X

Doyle's Legacy
By Harlan Richards

Back in the 1980s a person with a life sentence (lifer) would serve on average 13-15 years before release on parole. In the 1970s it was much shorter because Wisconsin's governors routinely granted clemency to lifers by commuting their sentences to 50 years or less. This allowed lifers to receive parole hearings far in advance of the statutorily mandated 11 years, 3 months (one lifer had his sentence commuted to “time served” after only 5 years).

It was so rare for a lifer to spend more than 20 consecutive years in prison that in 1980 there were only two prisoners with that distinction. In 1990, it was a newsworthy item when Steve Urban died in prison after serving 47 years on a life sentence. He was released on parole in the early 1970s but by that time he had become institutionalized and quickly demanded that he be allowed to return to prison. When he died, he no longer had any family to claim his body, which was buried in a pauper's grave outside of Waupun. The Waupun Correctional Institution Lifers Group took up a collection and bought a headstone for his grave.

Times have changed. The constant drum beat of vengeance, retribution and punishment has changed the political landscape. Newly convicted lifers no longer automatically become eligible for parole after 11 years, 3 months. The judge sets the length of time to eligibility and it is not uncommon for lifers to have to serve 30 or more years to their first parole hearing.

Fast forward to 2009, and those same lifers who could have been paroled in 13-15 years are now hoping for release after serving twice that amount of time. In the 1980s, release on parole was virtually assured based on past practice. While there are a few lifers still being released on parole after an average of 30 years, it has become the exception rather than the rule.

From only 2 lifers with 20 or more consecutive years served in 1980, there are now 255. The number is increasing every year. One of those lifers who had already served 20 years in 1980 is still in prison. Garold Rheinschmidt has now served 49 years. He is not alone. There are 6 lifers who have served over 40 years and an additional 37 lifers who have served over 30. There were none in 1980.
When data on lifers is evaluated based on year of admission, the critical year is currently 1979. That is the first year for which there are more lifers still in prison than have been released. The percentage of lifers incarcerated increases until 1989; none of the lifers who entered prison that year have been released.

Curiously, there are some anomalies. Two women came to prison in 1992 and were paroled relatively early. Lashonda Mayhall was released in 2005 after 12.5 years and Mary Leggate. One wonders why these two women were released in such a relatively short period of time while all other lifers spend years, or decades more.

To the lay person, it may seem right that “life means life”; that regardless of what was done in the 1980s and before, murderers belong in prison forever. It may seem that murderers are only now getting their just desserts. Perhaps that is true. Ex-governor Tommy Thompson made being “tough on crime” his mantra and served multiple terms as governor. The prison population was just 3,980 in 1980, grew to 7,362 in 1990 and hit 21,110 in 2005. Thompson made the warehousing of prisoners an established policy and became infamous among prisoners for his 1994 letter where he stated: “The policy of this Administration is to keep violent offenders in prison as long as possible under the law.”

The data reflect this change in attitude as most of the growth in time served to release occurred in the late 1990s and beyond. Dierdra Morgan, chairperson of the parole commission in 2001-02, is the only chairperson with the distinction of having gone an entire calendar year without paroling a single lifer (2002). In 2001, she paroled one lifer. He was housed in maximum security at the time and that generally means he was either paroled to a in prison or was released because he was terminally ill.

Jerry Smith, Ms. Morgan's predecessor, was not much better. He released only 2 lifers in each of the two years he was chairman.

Lenard Wells was Governor Doyle's first chairman. He started out slowly but once he gained confidence he began paroling many lifers. In 2005, he released 18 lifers. But he was forced to resign in 2006 due to the public outcry when he paroled two “cop killers.” The news media never did tell the whole story, prefering sensationalism to fair and accurate reporting. Robert Prihoda and LaVern Rogers were convicted in the 1975 shooting death of an off-duty police officer during a tavern robbery. They were both young men who made poor choices and paid the price of over 30 years in prison. Now approaching middle age, they no longer pose a threat to anyone and were appropriately released on parole. Neither one has been involved in any further criminal activity although they have now been free for years.

But Governor Doyle, ever the weather vane of public opinion, was spooked by the press coverage and replaced Wells with someone he could be sure would never make him look bad in the media again. Political expediency took precedence over fair paroling policies. The outcome of the 2010 gubernatorial election is more important than letting rehabilitated prisoners return to society. After all, nobody wants ta be "Willie Hortoned" in an election.

Governor Doyle's adoption of Thompson's warehousing policy seems very puzzling considering who Doyle's father was. Honorable James E. Doyle, Sr., was a federal judge in the Western District of Wisconsin and was instrumental in bringing Wisconsin's prison system out of the dark ages in the 1960s and 1970s. Gone are the days of bread and water diets, the silent system and a raft of draconian restrictions prison administrators once claimed were necessary to running a prison. It was so-called activist judges like Doyle who brought the cleansing light of judicial scrutiny to a medieval prison system. How ironic that decades later it is his son who is behind the erosion of those principles of justice and fair play upon which Judge Doyle's legacy stands.

One of the basic constitutional protections our founding fathers guaranteed us was the right to be free from ex post facto laws. This includes not being subjected to increased punish-ment for a crime previously committed. It seems only fair that this principle be respected in our country. Still, many oppose such a basic guarantee.

The problem is that when the constitution was written it only proscribed actual changes in laws, not reinterpretation of existing laws. Although the spirit of the ex post facto Clause would prohibit doubling a prisoner's time in prison after the fact,
the devil is in the details. In other words, our judges have chosen to rely on a strict literal interpretation rather than a more equitable analysis based on the intent of the constitution.
Many people listen to the controversy over judicial appointments to the federal bench with a yawn. For most citizens it does not matter who becomes a judge because they will never see the inside of a federal courthouse. But for those on the fringes of society - the prisoners and other social outcasts - federal courts are their only hope for justice. After decades of conservative judicial appointments, few judges remain who are willig to stand up for society's most oppressed people.

Wisconsin's lifers are trapped in a system which exists solely to perpetuate itself. In 1990, Thompson funded a study which called for the prison population to reach 20,000 by 2000. It became a self-fulfilling prophecy. The growing population of lifers has contributed to that growth. Those 255 lifers with more than 20 years served have cost taxpayers millions of dollars over the decades of their captivity. The annual cost to house a prisoner in fiscal year 2005 was $44,118. It is easy for Governor Doyle to blame our $6 billion budget shortfall on a bad economy. Much of it, however, appears to be the direct result of ill-considered corrections policies over the last 25 years.

There are hundreds of lifers still in prison under the old sentencing laws who could be safely released on parole. Jesse Derickson is 85 years old, serving double life for shooting 2 men and trying to make it look like they shot each other. Jesse has spent 26 years in prison and is now a doddering old man, wasting away in a prison cell. Wayne Lowe is 81 years old and has spent 21 years in prison on a life sentence for killing his wife's boyfriend. Wayne weighs about 90 pounds and can best be described as frail. These men have spent decades in prison, are near the end of their lives and no longer pose a threat to anyone. Who would you rather see in a prison cell? One of the many aging, now harmless, lifers or the young gun toting gang member selling crack on a street corner near you? Which one do you have the most to fear from?

The time for vengeance is over. What Wisconsin needs is restorative justice: A system which heals the victim, the community and the offender. Now is the time to restore sanity to the correctional system. The Department of Corrections has numerous programs to help prisoners learn to be good citizens. When prisoners change their thoughts, beliefs and actions, it should be acknowledged and they should be permitted to return to being productive members of society.
Parole decisions should be based on suitability for release rather than the next gubernatorial election. Our elected officials are squandering tens of millions of dollars on misguided corrections policies while children go hungry and schools are
under funded. Isn't it time that Wisconsin's citizens speak out on this issue?

About the author:
Harlan Richartds is serving a life sentence for stabbing another man in a fight. He has served 24 years in prison. In April 2008, after 2 1/2 years at a work release center and 19 months on work release, Alfonso Graham increased the length of Richards’ parole defer which resulted in Richards’ transfer back to a prison for additional years of warehousing. Richards is a self-taught jailhouse lawyer who has litigated prison rights issues extensively during his incarceration. He earned a bachelors degree in business administration from UW Platteville in 1997, graduating summa cum laude. He is currently housed in Oakhill Correctional Institution.

All raw data and calculations may be found at: WisconsinLifers.blogspot.com

*****************

Report wants life without parole abolished
By Kevin Johnson, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — A record 140,610 inmates in state and federal prisons are serving life sentences and nearly one-third of those have no possibility of parole, according to a criminal justice research group that supports alternatives to incarceration.

The Sentencing Project, whose reports are regularly cited in academic and government reviews examining criminal justice policy, concluded that the number of inmates sentenced to life without parole has more than tripled to 41,095 since 1992. The report, citing in part the rising cost of incarceration, urges that life without parole be abolished.

The recommendation was met with strong opposition from some law enforcement officials who said life sentences, including life without parole, help drive down violent crime.

Joseph Cassilly, past president of the National District Attorneys Association, acknowledged that long prison terms are a "huge drain on resources."

He said life sentences are appropriate for violent offenders and even some repeat drug dealers.

"Sometimes there is no way of getting through to these (criminals,)" said Cassilly, who did not dispute the report's statistical findings.

In the project's review, titled "No Exit," researchers also found "overwhelming" racial and ethnic disparities for those serving life terms: 66% are non-white and 77% of juveniles sentenced to life in prison are non-white.

"Life sentences imposed on juveniles represent a fundamental and unwise shift from the long-standing tradition that juveniles are less culpable than adults ... and are capable of change," said Ashley Nellis, a co-author of the report.

Among other findings:

• In Alabama, California, Massachusetts, Nevada, and New York at least one in 6 prisoners is serving a life sentence.

• California, Florida, Louisiana, Michigan, and Pennsylvania each have more than 3,000 people serving life without parole.

• Pennsylvania leads the nation with 345 juveniles serving life without parole.

• The costs of housing an aging prison population also are rising. States should expect to pay $1 million for each prisoner who spends at least 40 years incarcerated, the report concluded.

Todd Clear, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, said the cost of maintaining a permanent prison population is daunting. The total price tag to keep today's "lifers" incarcerated for the rest of their lives could cost the nation tens of billions of dollars, he said.

*********************

'LIFER' NUMBERS CLIMB

Number of people sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole in the U.S.:

1992 12,453
2003 33,633
2008 41,095

The National Criminal Justice Act of 2009 - "undertake a top-to-bottom review of our entire criminal justice system" and to offer recommendations for reform."

Senator Jim Webb of VA has introduced The National Criminal Justice Act of 2009.

Here is a fact sheet on the Bill which according to Senator Webb will be "undertake a top-to-bottom review of our entire criminal justice system" and to offer recommendations for reform."

Here is part of Webb's statement:

The National Criminal Justice Act of 2009 that I introduced in the Senate on March 26, 2009 will create a blue-ribbon commission to look at every aspect of our criminal justice system with an eye toward reshaping the process from top to bottom. I believe that it is time to bring together the best minds in America to confer, report, and make concrete recommendations about how we can reform the process.

Why We Urgently Need this Legislation:
With 5% of the world's population, our country now houses 25% of the world's reported prisoners.
Incarcerated drug offenders have soared 1200% since 1980.
Four times as many mentally ill people are in prisons than in mental health hospitals.
Approximately 1 million gang members reside in the U.S., many of them foreign-based; and Mexican cartels operate in 230+ communities across the country.
Post-incarceration re-entry programs are haphazard and often nonexistent, undermining public safety and making it extremely difficult for ex-offenders to become full, contributing members of society.

America's criminal justice system has deteriorated to the point that it is a national disgrace. Its irregularities and inequities cut against the notion that we are a society founded on fundamental fairness. Our failure to address this problem has caused the nation's prisons to burst their seams with massive overcrowding, even as our neighborhoods have become more dangerous. We are wasting billions of dollars and diminishing millions of lives.

We need to fix the system. Doing so will require a major nationwide recalculation of who goes to prison and for how long and of how we address the long-term consequences of incarceration.

Matlock on a Mission

Our friend Ken Harris is taking it to ‘em. Resistance to the abuse and oppression can take many forms. Some guys refuse to work, some refuse to eat, some stay in the hole, some write to politicians, some write to the press, and some learn the law and use the “tools of the Master” against the master. Our friend Matlock has done the latter, with vigor.

He recently settled his case, similar to Johnson v. Raemisch regarding the violation of his First Amendment rights in the denial of our newsletter.

He also won his Federal civil suit against the guards who abused him. That civil suit arose from the original John Doe filed by Harris in 2005. As we reported, Columbia County DA Bauer (now Judge Bauer) refused to prosecute the two guards and then Sauk Co. DA Barrett refused to interview Harris or his witnesses and asked to be removed from the case.

This case also created quite a stir when the DOC retaliated against a nurse who verified Harris’ claim of abuse.

In June, Judge George closed the case, falsely claiming that the prosecutors determined the case “lacked prosecutorial merit”. This, after 4 years of “investigation” where none of Harris’ witnesses were interviewed.

Harris has filed a Writ of Mandamus in the Court of Appeals forcing the Judge George to subpoena witnesses and documents that will prove the abuse.

The DOC, DAs, and courts want to keep their record intact - no prisoner will ever win a John Doe complaint on the 940.29 statute “Abuse of residents of a penal institution.” Who knows what pressure was applied on Judge George.

If you recall, Harris filed an ICRS against KMCI Deputy Warden Beck for foul-mouthing a group of prisoners. This resulted in Conduct Reports and other retaliation against Harris. He was removed from his program and transferred to a max.

He’s about ready to file suit in Federal Court on a claim of retaliation. You can bet he’ll prove his case. He’s a pit bull and he’s got a good chunk of their ass in his jaws.

He’s suffered a lot of abuse for standing up and fighting, but he’s satisfied and happy that he has done what he can to fight the abusive system. Fight on!

Stanley prison sucks up more state money
Published: August 14, 2009
Paul Snyder

The chorus of anger and resignation gets louder every time the state has to shell out more money for the Stanley Correctional Institution.

“It’s a white elephant,” said David Helbach, administrator for the Wisconsin Department of Administration’s Division of State Facilities and secretary to the state Building Commission. “It was a bad deal, and it never should have happened.”

But it happened and has cost taxpayers ever since.

Construction of the 43-acre prison began in 1998 as a joint venture between the city of Stanley and Dominion Venture Group, Edmond, Okla. The prison was built to state specifications with the understanding the state would buy the prison upon completion.

Helbach, who joined DOA two years ago, said the state negotiated an $82 million deal to buy the prison. But, he said, it was a curious deal considering the state was in the midst of a prison construction boom in the late 1990s.

“We bought it for about 30 percent more than we could have built it for,” Helbach said. “And we could have done it better.”

Since paying the $82 million and opening the prison in 2000, Wisconsin has dumped almost $20 million into upgrades and repairs, Helbach said.

That trend extended Wednesday when state Building Commission members unanimously approved a $313,250 boost to a security upgrade project, increasing the total cost of the security project to $1.4 million.

The project will add new door-locking and monitoring systems and fix defects in the buildings’ security systems, said John Dipko, spokesman for the Wisconsin Department of Corrections.

“We’re so far into the hole, we can’t get out,” Risser said.

State Rep. Dean Kaufert, R-Neenah, agreed, saying Wisconsin is stuck with the building.

“I don’t know if we can throw up our hands and say, ‘Forget it, we’ll build something new,’” he said. “I don’t know where the tipping point is, and I don’t think we can throw in the towel.

Perpetrators and enablers of torture in the U.S.

2009-11-02T11:25:00.000-08:00

This article is from the SF Bay View

Posted By blockreportradio On November 1, 2009

by Corey Weinstein, M.D., C.C.H.P

Photo:

Anthony Hall, 18, spends 23 hours per day in this cell in the supermax prison in Boscobel, Wisc. Judging from letters to the Bay View from prisons throughout the country, Boscobel seems to be one of the worst for Black prisoners. Prison officials there have often refused to deliver the Bay View to subscribers on the excuse that it would “incite a riot.” –
Photo: Andy Manis, AP

During the past 25 years I’ve spent a lot of time with survivors of torture, men and women enduring long term solitary confinement in California’s prisons. They are the most urgent victims of U.S. mass incarceration with its overcrowded facilities and policy of incapacitation, not rehabilitation.

Those thousands held in solitary for years on end report the expected classic symptoms of psychic disturbance, mental deterioration and social disruption. As described by various penal psychiatric experts, the symptoms of this syndrome include massive free-floating anxiety, hyperresponsiveness to external stimuli, perceptual distortions and hallucinations, a feeling of unreality, difficulty with concentration and memory, acute confusional states, the emergence of primitive aggressive fantasies, persecutory ideation, motor excitement and violent destructive or self-mutilatory outbursts.

The degrading conditions produce behaviors ranging from fights among prisoners to assaults on staff, assaults by staff, excrement throwing, self mutilation and contract killings. Isolation tears apart family and friendship ties, creating social dislocation.

In California there are about 4,000 men and women held in the state’s supermax facilities, called Security Housing Units, including 600 serving SHU terms in Administrative Segregation. That is 2.5 percent of the total population of 160,000.

The regime in SHU is a 23.5 hour per day lockdown in the 8’ x 10’ cell with no communal activities aside from small group exercise yards for some. There is no work, no school, no communal worship and meals are eaten in cell.

TVs and radios must be purchased, so the poor have none. Visits are noncontact, behind glass and limited to one or two hours on each weekend visit day. Each prisoner must submit to being handcuffed behind the back in order to exit the cell. Leg iron hobble chains are commonly used.

More than 50 percent of the men in SHU are assigned indeterminate terms there because of alleged gang membership or activity. The only program that the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCr) offers to them is to debrief.

The single way offered to earn their way out of SHU is to tell departmental gang investigators everything they know about gang membership and activities, including describing crimes they have committed. The department calls it debriefing. The prisoners call it “snitch, parole or die.” The only ways out are to snitch, finish the prison term or die. The protection against self incrimination is collapsed in the service of anti-gang investigation.

CDCr asserts that the lockdown and snitch policy are required for the safety and security of the institution. Having legitimate penalogical purpose, the SHU program is deemed worth any harm done to the prisoners.

California prisons continue to have a high rate of assaultive incidents among prisoners and from prisoners to staff. There is no proof or even any study that demonstrates that these measures are effective anti-gang measures. They appear to be no more useful than previous brutalities like that unleashed at Corcoran prison more than a decade ago.

Between 1988 and 1995, CDCr ran a program at the Corcoran SHU called the Integrated Yard Policy. Rival gang members were deliberately mixed together in small group exercise yards. The prisoners had to fight, and fight well or be punished by their own gangs.

When the fights occurred, guards were required to fire first anti-riot guns and then assault rifles at the combatants. Seven prisoners were killed and hundreds wounded. The program of beating prisoners down into the concrete with gunfire resulted in bigger, stronger gangs with new martyrs and heroes.

Mayhem and violence was added to the prison social system by departmental policy. No CDCr official has ever been held accountable or even assigned responsibility for what was know at Corcoran as the gladiator days. Line staff brought to trial by the U.S. Department of Justice avoided criminal convictions by proving that they were just following orders.

There are four prisons in California with SHUs: Corcoran, Pelican Bay and Tehachapi for men and Valley State Prison for Women. Only a few women have ever been given a SHU term for gang activity.

All those identified as gang members by the administrative kangaroo court serve SHU terms without end. The only way out is to debrief, to testify against oneself to prison rules violations and crimes.

Prisoners have found it very hard to attack the abuses in the SHU, even though the U.S. is under the jurisdiction of the U.N. Convention Against Torture (CAT). The U.S. states reservations to the treaty asserting that the U.S. Constitution and body of law are all that is required to satisfy the obligations of CAT.

But the 1995 Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA) that prohibits a prisoner bringing action for mental or emotional injury without prior showing of physical injury is one law that violates CAT. The U.N. Committee on Torture expressed concern that by disallowing compensation for psychic abuse the PLRA is out of compliance with CAT.

Under CAT, torture includes “any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted.” But the U.S. 1990 reservations to CAT were designed specifically to allow solitary confinement, as the reservations state that mental pain and suffering must be prolonged, be tied to infliction or threats of infliction of physical pain, the result of drugging or the result of death threats.

Despite SHU confinement without end to attempt to control gangs, prison gangs thrive in California’s prisons. The gang leadership predictably uses the snitch sessions to falsely target their rivals, or just recruit new members. Just as we have seen in U.S. anti-terror investigations, information derived from coercion is often unreliable.

Using indeterminate total lockdown to extract confessions is torture by international standards, as is the use of prolonged solitary confinement. U.S. prison officials order by rule the torture of prisoners. One in 31 adults in the U.S. is under the supervision of the criminal detention system – jail, prison, probation or parole – with 2.5 million behind bars.

Prisons dominate the lives of poor communities and communities of color and are ignored by affluent white America. One in 11 African-Americans and one in 27 Latino-Americans are under penal jurisdiction. Prisoners damaged by incarceration are returning to communities increasingly less able to absorb them.

The 2005 census found that severe poverty increased 26 percent more than the overall growth in poverty. In 2002, 43 percent of the nation’s poor were living in severe poverty, the highest rate since 1975.

Torture has always served more to beat down a population than to extract reliable information. The unstated goal is to incapacitate and marginalize the dangerous poor who are locked out of America’s opportunity and riches. The routine even banal nature of torture in U.S. prisons enables torture to be acceptable, and informs our failing strategies of dealing with any opposition by using brute force.

A more useful way to undermine and blunt prison gangs would be to provide programs and procedures that enliven the community of prisoners with rehabilitative activity making them too busy and too hopeful to become involved. Drug and mental health treatment and education and vocational training rather than enforced idleness and despair will help change the culture of the prison yard from a battleground to a place for personal and social renewal. To be successful at a renewal behind bars, a revitalization of our poor communities is desperately needed.

I’ll never forget my visit to several prisons in the United Kingdom a number of years ago. I toured one of their high security units housing eight of the 40 men out of 75,000 considered too dangerous or disruptive to be in any other facility. The men were out of their cells at exercise or at a computer or with a counselor or teacher.

The goal was to get them back on mainline through rehabilitation, not terror. With embarrassment, the host took us to the one cell holding the single individual who had to be continuously locked down and cuffed and hobbled before exit from his cell. I was equally embarrassed to tell our guide that this is how 2.5 percent of U.S. prisoners are routinely treated.

Corey Weinstein, MD, CCHP, is a physician, a Certified Correctional Health Professional and a renowned advocate for justice behind enemy lines. He can be reached at coreman@igc.org ^[2].

Amendment proposes more accurate census, prison population should not count towards small districts

2009-09-24T02:33:00.000-07:00

This Blogpost of the Prison Policy Institute discusses the flaws in the Census (the upcoming one in 2010), and how the pressure is now on the states themselves to solve the problem of gerrymandering:

"The Census Bureau counts people in prison as if they were residents of the communities where they are incarcerated, even though they remain legal residents of the places they lived prior to incarceration. As Census data is used to apportion political power at all levels of government, crediting thousands of disproportionately urban and minority men to other communities has staggering implications for modern American democracy.

In New York State, for example, one out of every three people who moved to upstate New York in the 1990s actually “moved” into a newly constructed prison. The State bars people in prison from voting, but their presence in the Census boosts the population of the upstate districts whose legislators favor prison expansion. Without this phantom population, 7 upstate New York State Senate districts would not meet minimum population requirements and would have to be redrawn."

Here again is what the PPI says about Wisconsin:

The 23rd decennial Census will again be counting incarcerated people in the wrong place. But if a proposed constitutional amendment in Wisconsin passes, the state’s days of using prison counts to distort districts (and influence elections) will be over.

Currently, one state legislative district is 10% prisoners, giving the residents of that district disproportionate say over state affairs. And because county board and rural city alderman districts are so much smaller, the inclusion of a single state prison in these districts can allow a handful of residents to dominate the county board or city council.

Ideally, the Census Bureau would change where it counts people in prison. But the pace of change has so far been slow, and with time running short before the next Census in April, the number of options are limited. As the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel editorialized in 2006:

Congress has asked the Census Bureau to report on how it could change the way it counts inmates, who now number about 1.5 million nationally. The National Academy of Sciences is also doing a study.

Yes, inmates really live in prison, but in no sense are they part of the community in which they are imprisoned. The census must count every U.S. resident, but it needn’t count them this way.
Neither Congress nor the Census Bureau really needs a report here. The bureau should change how it counts inmates, and if it doesn’t, Congress should mandate it.

Unfortunately, the Census Bureau responded with an “obtuse and evasive report” and Congress failed to follow up. The National Academies instructed the Bureau to conduct research on the best way to change how incarcerated people are counted, but there too, the Bureau failed to move forward. By now, the Bureau has squandered too much of the critical planning time to make the change before the next Census in 2010.

“the burden to eliminate prison-based gerrymandering is shifting to the states”
Now, the burden to eliminate prison-based gerrymandering is shifting to the states. In Wisconsin, Rep. Frederick Kessler has introduced a constitutional amendment that would require the state and local governments to ignore the prison populations when drawing districts. This approach would not credit incarcerated people back to their homes in Milwaukee and other urban areas, but it would end the practice of crediting them to the rural districts where they count for as much as a tenth of a state legislative district.

Other states are exploring options that would identify where incarcerated people are from and then adjust the federal Census counts to use the home addresses. The Wisconsin amendment [PDF] takes a simpler approach that will address the majority of the problem.
At 10am tomorrow (September 15th), I’ll be in 300 Northeast at the Wisconsin State Capital to testify in support of the Wisconsin Census Correction amendment which would direct state and local governments to omit the Census Bureau’s incarcerated population when drawing legislative districts.
---
Literature:
http://www.legis.state.wi.us/2009/data/AJR-63.pdf

Instead of treatment, it’s torture

2009-09-14T02:26:00.000-07:00

This article reflects what has also become custom in Wisconsin, and we should all be very critical about how our prisoners, fellow human beings, are treated.

Street News Service

http://www.streetnewsservice.org/

also in: Waging non-violence.

TOP STORY - Instead of treatment, it’s torture (Streetvibes)

Eli BraunSeptember 7, 2009

During 70 days of solitary confinement at Toledo Correctional Institution, Sean Swain spent 23 hours a day locked in his cell. His only opportunity for social interaction and “recreation,” consisted of the one hour spent out-with his cell each day going through the prisons routine process of invasive searches. As Eli Braun reports, the rise of solitary-confinement units at U.S. prisons indicates a disturbing trend in the development of the penal system, especially for prisoners suffering from mental illness or drug abuse, for whom such treatment can further exacerbate existing conditions. Instead of treatment, it’s torture

CINCINATTI, USA - During his 70 days of solitary confinement at Toledo Correctional Institution, Sean Swain spent 23 hours a day locked in his cell. He spent the 24th hour, his only opportunity for social interaction and “recreation,” being strip-searched, including a “visual body-cavity search.” By comparison, inmates in “general population” spend 11 hours a day locked in their cells.Solitary confinement cripples prisoners’ capacity for social interaction and can exacerbate or even cause mental-health crises. The rise of solitary-confinement units at U.S. prisons indicates a disturbing trend, especially for prisoners suffering from mental illness or drug abuse. Studies find that solitary confinement is not just ineffective at promoting good behavior, but is a full-fledged form of torture, breaking down the healthy and further enfeebling the ill.

Since 1991, Swain, now 49, has been sent to solitary confinement “seven or eight times,” including a 144-day stint from May to October 2003. Most recently, he violated rules by “encourage(ing) prisoners to partake in a 30-day work stoppage,” according to the official conduct report.

During his 70 days in isolation, Swain didn’t know when he would be returned to general population. He remains in prison.

“Cage without a curtain”

Swain details the conditions in solitary confinement, also known as “segregation.” “The tube lighting in segregation cells is never shut off,” Swain says. “Insects were breeding in the mops, which had not been exchanged for months. Those same insect-infested mops were provided to us for cell-cleaning.”As he cleaned, insects would swarm around the cell’s lighting fixture.

Prisoners in solitary confinement had access to showers and recreation only Monday to Friday. Weekends were spent entirely locked in, though Swain believes that policy might have changed.

At times he lacked soap and toothpaste. In his final week in segregation, as solitary confinement is known, the cellblock ran out of toilet paper, he says.

Reports from Ohio’s Correctional Institution Inspection Committee (CIIC) and correspondence with other prisoners confirm unsanitary conditions at some prisons. The CIIC is authorized by the Ohio Legislature to regularly inspect prisons and provide oversight.

For showers, “I was issued a single state towel upon entering segregation” and never had the opportunity “to exchange it for clean,” Swain says. But he considered himself fortunate to have been issued a towel at all, as some inmates in segregation never got one.“Or maybe I wasn’t so lucky, since I ended up with bacteria and fungus on my feet,” he says.

Prisoners who didn’t receive towels instead used bed sheets. The shower stall was “a cage without a curtain,” Swain says. Even though prisoners tried to arrange their clothing across the shower bars for privacy, prisoners were subject to public view. Some mentally disturbed prisoners, informally labeled “serial jackers,” would watch through the bars of their cells “as if enjoying a personal peep-show.” The water would last approximately five to 10 minutes, then stop without warning for 10 minutes. “If someone has soap on his face or in her eyes, he must stand naked and wet for 10 minutes. … In some of the showers, hitting the button before the 10-minute waiting duration resets the timer and causes the 10-minute duration to start over,” Swain says.

Isolation cells might no longer be strictly isolated. Due to overcrowding, some prisons now double-bunk their segregation cells. Some prisoners spend 23 hours a day locked in with another person, in a cell designed for single occupancy.

System-wide, the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections operates at 134 percent of capacity, with 11 of the 32 institutions operating above 150 percent capacity. According to one CIIC report, “One had to stand sideways to walk through the rows of bunk beds.” Overcrowding might also result in long waits “for those in segregation who are being transferred to other prisons, all due to the need to wait for an open bed,” the CIIC reported. The result, it appears, is extended periods of isolation. Swain attributes the length of his 144-day-term in isolation in 2003 not to the severity of his infraction but to the wait for an open bed.‘The hole’ by any other name. Although he spent 23 hours a day alone in his cell, in another sense, Swain wasn’t alone.

Some 25,000 U.S. prisoners reside in solitary confinement at “supermax prisons.” An additional 50,000 to 80,000 prisoners reside in restrictive and isolated “segregation” or “special housing” units at non-supermax prisons, according to a recent New Yorker article. In Ohio at mid-year 2007, 1,869 men and 90 women lived in isolation, whether through formal segregation or security levels 4 or 5, according to the American Correctional Association. It’s not known how many prisoners reside in solitary confinement at some point during their stay. Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville and Ohio State Penitentiary in Youngstown can hold prisoners in lockdown for years at a time, including for their entire sentences.

Prison administrators and correctional officers refer to the various forms of these 23-hour-a-day cells as “administrative segregation.” Prisoners prefer a less euphemistic name: “the hole” or “the box.” Besides those names, there are several bureaucratic others. After an alleged infraction, an inmate might first be placed in “security control” for one to 15 days while an investigation unfolds. If deemed guilty, the inmate might spend an additional one to 15 days in “disciplinary control,” which can be extended to 30 days for subsequent infractions. An inmate can be referred to “local control” for up to six months if his presence in general population is a security threat or if he’s “failed to adjust to population.” “Those criteria are “broad and subject to wide interpretation,” says Shirley Pope, executive director of the CIIC. If an inmate’s own security is threatened, he can be kept in solitary confinement in local control even though he might not be the cause of the potential disturbance. After “local control,” an inmate can be transferred to 4B, a long-term lockdown where some people spend years in extreme isolation. These lockdown units aren’t technically considered “segregation,” as prisoners in 4B aren’t being punished for particular infractions. But it’s “segregation under a different name, the same conditions, the same lockdown,” Pope says.

Unlike segregation units, 4B units don’t have regular mental-health rounds. Pope is concerned that mentally ill prisoners in 4B aren’t properly cared for. The CIIC recently identified 218 mentally ill prisoners in 4B at Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville, “in spite of the known mental-health deterioration stemming from long-term isolation.”‘Psychological warfare’“It is widely accepted among mental-health professionals that long-term isolation of the mentally ill results in deterioration, not recovery,” the CIIC noted in a 2008 report. Nevertheless, the mentally ill seem propelled toward solitary confinement. Swain says he was surrounded by people “who attempted suicide, some multiple times; who threw feces and food; who engaged in rattling their doors and pounding; who yelled from cell to cell or screamed incoherently at all hours.”

Prisoners suffered sleep deprivation from the constant noise. Many suicide attempts happen in segregation units. Inmates attempt to hang themselves with sheets, overdose with stockpiled medications or cut themselves with blades from safety razors. Cruelly, segregation disproportionately houses those prisoners least able to endure the psychological impact of isolation. Advocates point out that the mentally ill rarely belong in prison in the first place, much less in solitary confinement. The mentally ill might be targeted under the “failure to adjust” criterion and then sent to punitive solitary units for behavioral problems related to their illness. Mentally ill state prisoners are nearly twice as likely to physically or verbally assault staff or other prisoners, according to a 2006 study by the U.S. Department of Justice.The solution is not to stiffen penalties. For mentally ill “feces throwers” at Southern Ohio Correctional Facility, the CIIC reported that “prosecution for harassment does little if anything in deterrence.” Instead, state prisons should improve mental-health services. The bipartisan Council of State Governments found that inadequacies in mental-health services “can lead to inmate-on-staff assaults, inmate-on-inmate assaults and other use-of-force incidents.”Meanwhile, for the mentally ill in solitary confinement, their health deteriorates, their behavior worsens and their security level rises. They might be transferred to higher-security institutions.

“If they had a mental health advocate, that wouldn’t happen,” Pope says. “They require therapeutic interventions before they’re “bumped up in security status and end up at Lucasville.” In a sense, the mentally ill are trapped. “Their behavior is destined to deteriorate under those conditions,” Pope says. “Then their poor behavior is used to justify why they should be there.” Unsurprisingly, many drug offenders continue to abuse substances during their incarceration. They can be sent to segregation after they’re caught with illegal substances. But solitary confinement does nothing to mitigate or heal their addiction. A report by Human Rights Watch held that New York State was inflicting cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment by isolating drug offenders while also denying them treatment during lock-up. “I’ve had 15, 16 drug tickets, no assaults or anything like that,” said Peter G., a prisoner quoted in the report. “I’ve never been in a treatment program. Now I’m in the box till 2012. I’m a drug addict. If you know I’m a drug addict, why are you putting me in a box?” Ohio offers some substance-abuse treatment to those in isolation, with programs varying by institution, according to CIIC.

Advocates question the segregation of drug offenders in the first place. To the extent their infraction stems from an underlying addiction, they should be treated instead of punished. Some administrators, say solitary confinement reduces violence and helps maintain order. But the bipartisan Commission on Safety and Abuse in America’s Prisons found the very opposite. “The increasing use of high-security segregation is counter-productive, often causing violence inside facilities and contributing to recidivism after release,” the commission said. The commission called for ending long-term isolation in U.S. prisons. It determined that after 10 days, solitary confinement was seriously detrimental to prisoners’ well-being.

Some administrators maintain that they have no alternative to locking dangerous prisoners in solitary units. But correctional policies in other nations undermine that claim. The British provide their most dangerous prisoners with opportunities for work, education and programming intended to increase social skills, according to The New Yorker. The Missouri Division of Youth Services recently reduced its use of solitary confinement for juveniles.Swain calls segregation “psychological warfare.” “The use of isolation not only escalates the inmate’s sense of alienation, but also further serves to remove the individual from proper staff supervision,” the CIIC found.To be rehabilitative, prisons must promote integration over isolation, therapy over torture.

By Eli Braun

Reprinted from name of street paper© Street News Service: http://www.street-papers.org/

PICTURE AVAILABLE: Captive (Todd (Hyung-Rae) Tarselli, courtesy of the American Journal of Public Health)

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New Site on Wisconsin Lifers

2009-08-05T09:44:00.000-07:00

Our comrades have started a new, much needed weblog called Wisconsin Lifers. Data on prisoners serving life sentences in Wisconsin will be posted soon. Harlan Richardts blogs about his research and experiences with Wisconsin life sentences. Some quotes:

"Wisconsin's lifers are trapped in a system which exists solely to perpetuate itself."

"There are hundreds of lifers still in prison under the old sentencing laws who could be safely released on parole. Jesse Derickson is 85 years old, serving double life for shooting 2 men and trying to make it look like they shot each other. Jesse has spent 26 years in prison and is now a doddering old man, wasting away in a prison cell. Wayne Lowe is 81 years old and has spent 21 years in prison on a life sentence for killing his wife's boyfriend. Wayne weighs about 90 pounds and can best be described as frail. These men have spent decades in prison, are near the end of their lives and no longer pose a threat to anyone."

Harlan Richartds is serving a life sentence for stabbing another man in a fight. He has served 24 years in prison. In April 2008, after 2 1/2 years at a work release center and 19 months on work release, Alfonso Graham increased the length of Richards’ parole defer which resulted in Richards’ transfer back to a prison for additional years of warehousing. Richards is a self-taught jailhouse lawyer who has litigated prison rights issues extensively during his incarceration. He earned a bachelors degree in business administration from UW Platteville in 1997, graduating summa cum laude. He is currently housed in Oakhill Correctional Institution.

Map of prisons, correctional centers, in Wisconsin

2009-08-05T09:39:00.001-07:00

This is the map on the website of Wisconsin DOC depicting the correctional institutions, centers and juvenile facilities. (click to enlarge)

Urgent message from Jackie Carter

2009-07-23T01:00:00.000-07:00

Jackie Carter, #348-415
P.O. Box 9900,
Boscobel, WI 53805

Date: (received June 23rd 2009)

Dear Reader,
Please!! I'm in the worst condition and situation of my life! I'm being subjected to some of the most brutal, harsh, openly racist, cunning conditions one could ever possibly imagine! I haven't had shoes on, underwear, soap to wash/bathe, adequate medical care, etc. for over 2 1/2 to 3 years! I'm being denied meals for months! My mail is being taken/withheld, my legal material is being destroyed via squirting jelly, toothpaste, magic shave, etc., all over it. I was given 120 more days in the hole because I refused to go outside in the wet, dark, barefooted (without shoes on).

Guys are overdosing every day. They are being beat, electrocuted, etc. I watched a lieutenant slowly walk away from a prisoner after he overdosed and didn't return for over an hour later! It is cold (extremely) all winter. Guys are in these cells completely nude without towels, linen, toilet paper - nothing! Freezing! That's punishment! They are housing and hiding mental prisoners back in these segregation units instead of sending them where they can get help. They are torturing mental prisoners, non-English speakers, etc. They are shooting guys with tazer guns with the long electrical wires. They spray asthmatic prisoners and all with chemical incapacitating agents and laugh as they choke. Then chain prisoners to the gate of cages and cut every stitch of their clothes off with a pair of scissors as a female c.a. video records the entire nightmare while the white men make jokes about Black men's phallus; such as: "I see those ´myths´ about Black men's penis ain´t true. Ha. Ha. Ha." Referring to their shrunken penis caused by heatings, torture, tazer, etc. When I report this / these things, I am written falsified conduct reports and given 360 more days in the hole. Others, as you can imagine, are scared to death! To say a word! This is how they get away with so much!

So I am scared for my life but I must get back to my babies. I'm in prison because one of my daughters - a two year old - had a very strange medical problem where she's he playing with her brothers and sisters and when I noticed I don't hear her voice I'd go find her laid out. I'd pick her up, shake her, open her eyes, call her, etc. For about an hour she'd be really rubbery and limp while moaning. I was taking her everywhere to find out the problem. No one knew. One night I came home and I'd been out all day with two of my boys - Jackie and Osha. When I got home I waked all my other babies to see what's up and see what they have to talk about and give them their goodies and get everybody to the bathroom. When I saw my two girls were wet - Tavil and Tyleesha - I went to hurry up and get them to the bath tub and wash themselves, their panties, socks, etc., before their Momma wake up to prevent spanking J
While in the shower/tub combo (shower was on, but tub unplugged), I heard my new born begin to get fussy. So I went to get him before he woke his Momma. I got him and his bottle, sat in the chair, put him on my chest to rock him. The next thing I know we both are asleep. I jumped up to go check on my babies in the tub. Noodles (Tavil) was gone. She had got into bed. Tyleesha was on the bathroom floor. I picked her up, shook her, put her on the counter top, tried to open her mouth, etc. Then went to call 911. When they (911) got there, we got into it because they were more into casting blame than seeing about my baby. Next thing they took me downtown , and tried to get me to say my wife had did something. I refused to play their little games. So they went back to the house and got my wife and our babies for more bargaining power. My babies were used as bargaining chips. She was told to sign these falsified statements against me or she would go to prison and our babies would he taken and split up between total strangers, including our newborn son - like new found pets. She complied L. But they again tricked her. Once she signed the falsified statements in order to save herself and our babies, they (the slick detectives) told her: oop! Mam, now you have incriminated yourself. Now, sorry, and used the falsified statements to take our babies and convict us both which is exactly what the falsified statement was supposed to prevent.

She (my ex-wife) is home now. She got seven years. Before trial she wrote me over and over telling me she is scared. That they were forcing her to lie and say things about me that is not true. I tried to show these "missives" to the judge (Timothy Dugan), along with some photos of me, my babies, nieces, etc. - horseback riding, swimming, sledding, etc. - to show I'm not the monster that they "always" try to make you look like in court but this judge refused to accept my wife's missives and took my photos of my babies and to date, I have not gotten them back, no matter how much I begged or got others to beg for my photos back. Once in prison and not knowing the Wisconsin's sleazy law (we are not from Wisconsin), I started searching for the law library to learn the law, because getting home to my babies is all l'm trying to hear.

Little did I know these people had other plans for me. Instead of going home to my Momma, Daddy, babies, etc., they wanted me to wash dishes, mop floors, cut grass, wash walls, etc., etc., etc., for 12 cents an hour. When I refused to slave for them and explained why (home, babies., not guilty, etc.) they told me: "Mr. Carter, we're not social workers and all we know is that we need you in our food service" L slaving. When I refused, they stripped my visiting list. For years I have not seen my babies.

Before, during, and after that time, there was a world of racist attacks via retaliation after retaliation swamped upon me. Such as: all the heads were cut off my babies’ photos. My baby girls report cards were diced and sprinkled over where I sleep. Every white female photo I had was cut beyond repair, but all the Black, Latina, Asian female photos were left untouched. The white female addresses vanished. The Brothers' addresses were left alone. I sent my son a box of coloring pencils before they got to him they were taken out of the box and pulverized. I spoke to my li’l cousin and niece who I spoiled and they let me know they had a cold. So, I sent them a bag of halls cough drops. The large 9x12 envelope was opened, as was the bag of cough drops, each cough drop was taken out of its wrapper. The empty bag and wrappers were put back in the envelope and mailed out to my cousin and niece. L Imagine what I was going through. Behind these babies thinking I would do something so rotten and cruel to them. They almost had me. I was about to make the National Guard come up here, then I thought about my babies.

One day the C/O stole photos out of my mail. See, we have to leave our mail open for them to read it, then seal it and mail it out. Third shift does this. So these people know all up your personal family business, family relationships, everything. Because they read and study our mail like newspapers, gossip columns. So they know how you feel, who you like, who you don't like, etc. So they know when and how to press you to get the maximum response if you are not familiar with them and their capabilities. So, I told my friend and people, please don't loose these photos - please! Don't because I have yet to get duplicates. The C/O took all 36 valuable family photos. I was so sick. I am still sick. I cherish my family photos. They stabbed my Mom's eyes out of her pictures and wrote "Die Nigger Moose Bitch" over her photo.
Listen to me carefully! Wisconsin's three max prisons and the one supermax, including many lower security prisons in Wisconsin are ran and operated on every level by a clan of all white, openly racist close friends and family members on every level. Including, and certainly not limited to, the complaint department, so any type of relief is impossible. Let me explain further, O.K?

I report my abuse, my babies photos destroyed, etc., by a C/O - via filing a complaint. O.K? Now my complaint goes to be investigated by my abusers' Mom, sister, brother, wife, Dad, etc., who works in the complaint department. So, without a doubt, my complaints are dismissed, rejected, etc. Then a falsified fabricated, major conduct report is written up on me (retaliation). Then I'm sent in front of their wife, Dad, cousin, ex husband, etc., who poses as a hearing officer. Who, no doubt, finds me guilty of every charge. And sentences me to 368 more days in the hole (where I am now), where their cousins, lovers, neighbors, aunts, etc., taunt and torture me every damn day - refusing to feed me because I refuse to get on my knees, etc. Back in the hole they degrade you to the lowest common denominator. Guys are back here screaming, kicking, and pounding the toilet, walls, sink and tossing, smearing, and covering their tiny cells and windows with faeces, blood.

They have been beaten, electrocuted, sprayed with chemical incapacitating agents until their skin peals. They're mentally in need. But they keep them hidden in these places instead of getting / sending them to a facility that will help them. They yell (the C/O’s) "Nigger, Nigger, Nigger" and "Spick, Spick, Spick" over the PA system. They drag after beating and shooting them out of the cells barely able to stand. Chain them to this steel door and cut every stitch of their clothes off of them with a pair of scissors until they're completely nude. All while a white female video records it as they make racist jokes like: "I see all those myths ab out Black men ain't true." (Referring to the shrunken, traumatized phallus. Their side! Three in the morning they will take Black guys with the longest braids out of the cell and tell them it's a shake down and "I want every piece of that shit in your heads taken loose." There is not one Black or Latino C/O., nowhere! So these racists don't have to pretend. They be exactly who they are - Racist! Guys are scared to death because they know what they are capable of. So they don't say a word. Then they use guys like me to make examples of. A lot of guys can't write. Some guy was putting together knowledge of what is going on behind these deadly walls. The C/O’s got wind of it, locked the prison down, sent those guys to supermax (Boscobel, WI) and cunningly and strategically got to the news outlets and started spreading lies that they found evidence that these guys were about to destroy/tear up the prison, and the ignorant, unaware outside went for it. This was orchestrated by the Warden and the Security Director.

If mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, - family period - knew what their family members were going through and being subjected to, they would check on them deeply and often. But the average brother wants every body at home to know or "think" every thing is OK. 'I´m cook I got this. I'm a man, Momma." All the while crying and bleeding inside. Then the masters of deception helps out in the deception of everything looking fine by knowingly keeping the visiting room spotless. So when the average Mom or Grandmom, etc., comes to see (us) they look around and get a false sense everything is fine, my baby's O.K. But little do they know back on the other side of the visiting room is Hell! Dodge County (in Wisconsin) has about five or six gigantic prisons in it (men and women) everybody that works in the prison is (as I say) close friends and family members from the community. The court house and sheriff department are made up of family and friends of the prison staff. The ex-police chief is head of the prison barials. His sons went to school with the old D.O.C. secretary.
Listen, a C/O. crushed my hand in a steel door slot. I wrote and wrote and begged the detectives to come in so I could file charges on this c.o. (Now he crushed my hand because I reported he called me a nigger). Months go by and no one would come to see me. Finally, after more pressure the detective that came was the prison's sergeant's wife's brother, who quickly dismissed my case. So I wrote the Circuit Judge (also connected). He also denied to help me file charges on his family and friends in the Waupun prison. And to show ever more about close friends and family members, the nurse put in my files that I punched the wall!
They have killed so many guys in W.D.O.C. it is unbelievable. The females catch pure hell to! To save money for less false labor trips to the hospital, they tell them (the female prisoners) what day/date they are gonna have their babies and take it on that day! The females inform staff they are pregnant by male guards, the female is put in the hole! This W.D.O.C. has to be thoroughly and seriously investigated. Everyone is afraid of their so-called powerful union they have!!

I broke my foot and they let it heal deformed. I, not once, saw a doctor or nurse. They stabbed the eyes out of my Mom' s photo and drew fangs protruding from her mouth and wrote "moose nigger bitch" across her breasts. My baby boys (Adonis and BeDown) sent me photos of themselves at Chuchy Cheese, having fun. They stabbed their eyes and noses out and wrote "Boom" on their foreheads and "kill nigger babies too!" on their photo. These were dismissed (complaints). For over 2 years I have been in the hole without shoes, soap, underwear. When I reported they stabbed up my family photos, social worker (“Z.”) falsified three pages, saying I asked to be moved to this plantation – concentration camp. Then they squeezed on tiny painful handcuffs and shackles and rode me to this plantation for hours - in serious pain - and no shoes, still. They stopped to eat and didn't feed me or let me use the restroom. They told me to hold it. When 1 got there 1 was put in a plexiglass and steel cage and left from 9:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. - nude and on display because 1 refused sexual orders and other orders to stick my fingers in my mouth and "flip up them soup coolers so I can see what´cha hidin".
It was so hot that day, and 1 hadn't eaten or had nothing to drink, so I fainted, and was left in the cage until I came to. When I came to I saw men and women C/O’s walking around looking at me as I was a bug with something inadequate. I also saw the female security director laughing and talking to C/O.´s Finally, when they came to get me - no, first they were laughing and teasing me with food and drink, saying "die nigger". When they came to get me it was six C/O.´s and a white shirt. I was still completely nude. And they threw me in a completely empty concrete and steel cell on the floor. Then tossed in a dress-looking something, that smelled like faeces. Then told me if you want to eat, get toilet paper, etc., when we approach this cell door, go to the back of the cell, get on your knees, etc., etc., If you don't, it'll he counted as a refusal to eat. So, from 7/30/08 to 8/29/08, 1 only had three meals, because I refused to) be fed and treated that way and plus the paper bags were wet and nasty, etc. The three meals 1 did eat was given to me (full trays) by an unknowing rookie.

When I fell I hit my head and my vision is blurry to date. I still don't have shoes, soap, nor have I seen a doctor or nurse. Again, there is no one to report to so lots of guys have given up and believe in their hearts that nothing can happen, so just shut up and suffer. I was told to keep your mouth shut and do time, or you will spend many more holidays in this hole and we are gonna break you or starve you. It is your choice, boy! You ain’t so big around here. (By Capt. Mark Lesatz). Whole entire families work in these W.D.O.C. prisons.

Another example: husband is a C/O. and his wife is a nurse. Their son, a C/O. Captain, his wife works in the complaint department - unit manager. His brother works in food service sergeant. His wife is the Security Director secretary and etc., etc. Wisconsin's prison system is made up of close friends and family members on every level!

History clearly tells the world you can't put 100% all white rule over 85% Black men. And they (the C/O’s) are left to police themselves. Death! Disaster! Dangerous! They take our property, manipulate our accounts. These guys in these cells are sick. Because to speak to a nurse is $7.50 co pay. And to allow themselves to sit undisturbed all day, these nurses manipulate that rule to prevent guys from seeing them by compiling hundreds of dollars of I.O.U.´s in their accounts and soon as your family sends you a dime, it is taken to put towards these I.O.U.´s.

I just tried to file a law suit and my abusers sabotaged it by holding my mail. With holding and preventing me from obtaining evidence. They break guys teeth, bones, etc, I hear guys in cells crying, hungry and hurt. They put me in a cell all winter – no heat at all. I swear I knew I´d die! I heard the unit manager (Linda Hoddy-Tripp) - she is about 69 - went from c.a. to complaint examiner, now unit manager at Supermax in Boscobel, Wisconsin. Now it is about 3:00 a.m. and I hear her and see about five of her goons (C/O.´s) coming down the hallway (in Boscobel), She is unaware of me being awake and listening to their racist diagnosis of "coons" as we are being referred to. One of the C/O.s: “It´s mighty quiet tonight around here. Usually when you bring in a lot of new 'coonie boys' they mighty loud.” Linda Hoddy-Tripp response: “That's because they're out of their element. If they were in their natural habitat they would be raping, robbing, and murdering and lord knows what else.”

These people make me sick. And those that know what I'm saying knows that no matter what their profession is their mindset stays the same. So, imagine having to see a dentist or nurse or any other “caregiver” that thinks and feels this way about you, to trust them to drill and inject “What” in you in a syringe. It is horrifying!

How do we report abuse? To the person they are not going to hold their Mom, son, wife, husband, etc., accountable for doing something - whatever! To a nothing ass nigger as I've been called on many occasions. This is criminal conduct! There is prisoners here for allegedly doing much less! Get their brother or Mom fired for breaking a nigger's teeth out or killing a coon! Never will they do that!

I hear the computer is a valuable tool. If you look on it for or about Wisconsin Department of prisons, see how many lawsuits and what else one could find. I couldn't and can't get help or direction on filing criminal charges on a C/O. for breaking my hand or other abuses. But a prisoner squeezed a towel on a C/O. (he says) and a few drops of water. The very next day a detective was here (prison) to assist in the filing of charges on the prisoner for (in their words) throwing an unknown substance on him. Which is 5 years!! A prisoner was put in the hole for 368 days for not standing still when ordered (they call it disobeying orders), when he was having a seizure.
They hate my guts!! They say I'm full of hot piss and wild oats (whatever the hell that means).
My filing complaints for a disabled person or reporting their abuse they say, "Mr. Carter, it don't concern you. It is a law in Wisconsin, that clearly states its prison time a felony for anyone failing to report knowledge of a crime. But I'm told it is not my business and my complaints are dismissed and rejected, etc. I was forced to walk around prison with a hole in my stomach and puss dripping, blood, etc. Because they (the MD) didn't want anyone to know what he did to me. I had surgery (hernia) at U.W. Madison, Wisconsin hospital. But the prison MD (Larson, Charles) thought a drainage tube was left in me. He took some pointed scissors and stuck them in and cut. At that instant my stomach blew up. The size of a super large soft ball. It was left open, got infected, etc., for months. They had taken me through and subjected me to so much abuse one night I got very serious chest pain. I fell. I was left there because I couldn't sing a co pay slip. The slot was closed and I was left there.

Another guy died (Mr. Powe) at that same prison (Boscobel) Supermax. They say he had flu symptoms but he was having a heart attack. Right now they are denying his (Powe's) sister the medical records. They got their own grave yard and they use it. They are so cunning. They tricked families into not investigating their son or daughter deaths by saying they died from AIDS. This created shame so quietly they stopped.

Look how many prisons there are in Wisconsin. They are killing us while robbing us at the same time. For example, my family sends me $10. I get $3.15. When we ask what the hell is this? They say, “Oh yeah, we took this for 'that and this'.” They have all sorts of ways to take our money. If I call home and Moma uses her three-way to call my brother, I get 90 days in the hole because I didn't call my brother "direct". So the prison could get the connection fee (their profit). I'm put in the hole where I am now because someone on the streets used their phone and services "'they" pay for.

They have plenty more little ways that are state sanctioned robberies. They forge disbursements in our name and just take our money. In take money from someone without their authorization it is called a robbery. These guys (prisoners, a lot of them) in Wisconsin think it is supposed to be this way. The others are scared to death. And believe it is ok. I know better! I'm scared too, but I want to get my babies back!! So the hell with everything else.

Also with the pen (insert) I want you to see the affidavits from my ex-wife. She says she is sorry but trust means the world to me. And I feel deceived in the worst way. I need you to get this out to any and all that you feel will help and that is not afraid.

They even put a needle in my food. When I bit down on it, it broke my tooth! I' m lucky it didn 't stab up through my gums or bone and infect me with the contents on the needle. Because I know they put something on it (the needle). Please!! I need help to be with my babies more than anything!

I did not, nor would I ever, hurt any child for any reason at all! Children love me. Anyone that knows me will tell you this. I don't have any money (another reason I am still here) but I trade my food for postage/stamped envelopes, etc. to write. But would you please type or have this missive typed up for me and send me a few copies to distribute and you do the same! I´ll greatly appreciate that, I really would.

Lastly, I ask that you look at this (my situation) as if I were your son, brother, Dad, etc., speaking to you! Please!! Help me.

I want you to use this / these pages (my missive) any way you know how to get me the help I need to get home to my babies.

Distribute it any way to anyone. We need help to get back together. Do you or anyone know how to start a legal fundraiser to pay attorneys? I'm tell you if you were taken in to a prison in Wisconsin you start closely checking on everyone you know in a prison. They have the most cunning successful mental conditioning and slave program I've ever been subjected to in my life! And it’s promoted with straight fear and intimidation!! I know some people that have been trying to get up in her but they successfully hold them at bay (keep them out). But they have open house where they can (the C/O’s and staff) bring in their wives, Moms, and everyone in all the time. Especially their children, because they are supposed to be getting their children ready and showing them how to do our children.

Please help us (my babies and I).
I´ll always respond to all mail. If not, I didn't get your mail.

Always sincere,
Jackie Carter

Visiting and writing

2009-07-22T11:43:00.000-07:00

This was written in 2005 for the FFUP Newsletter. SInce the internet host will cease to exist soon, we re-publish this here.

by D.

After giving this some thought, I have decided that my primary concern is not only the closure of the inhumane concentration camp and implement of racial/ethnic cleansing, but it is also - even while it still may operate - to have a system of real checks and balances. Right now, there is only a sham of such a recourse in the form of exhaustive remedies and CCE and ICRS. And these are only available for the inmate. I have never heard of an inmate, who has utilized these remedies, to have actually won his case. Even though he may have every evidence, and even court orders, he usually (always that I have known) loses.

But, it is the free citizen, like myself; the visitor, the correspondent, that has no recourse - unless you have the time and money to hire a lawyer to file a civil suit.

My experience with WSPF has been one in which they have taken sentences out of context and portions of visits and made them into something (a conflict with the Administrative Code, and worse, their own special little rules and regulations) that was completely made up on their part. For instance, most recently they took a sentence out of one of my letters to an inmate, where I said I would send in to a pen pal service for him. In his letters to this pen pal service, this inmate always (always) put in the responding letter that he was in prison. In some form or another, he mentioned that he was incarcerated. I would send in his letter and the $6.00 that it cost to find a pen pal. Unknown to me, he had also written this service and mentioned that he would like to place an ad for himself. They (WSPF) says that he had planned to place an ad without telling them he was in prison and that constituted fraud. WSPF decided that, because I was paying for and sending 'his' letter to answer other ads, that I must also be part of the attempt to conceal that he was in prison in the ad that he planned to put in. As a result, they charged me with fraud, and demoted him from level 4 to level 1 or 2. (I'm not sure which). Although I had all the proof, they would not even consider that I was not involved or had knowledge of any wrong doing, or infringement of codes.

As a matter of fact, I was so distraught that my personal rights and freedoms could be so maligned, I also wrote legislators, the Governor Doyle, newspapers, etc. And no one responded. And I see this kind of power and control over ordinary citizens all the time. No agency should have that much control. There should be a recourse for families and incarcerated both.

The idea of the level system is a total sham. Many have gone through the levels and been dropped for nothing. And at the same time, many have been transferred out - for no apparent reason - without ever completing the level 4.

Court orders, protecting the inmates and their properties (legal and personal) have no protection within the walls of WSPF. They are able to confiscate, destroy, deface at will. And no one will put an end to this. Even though it has been decided that those in charge of such institutions need to obey their own laws to show that it is important to follow rules and regulations, it rarely happens. I have heard again and again the break down of court ordered protections. There needs to be someone - a real someone, not the imagined 'monitor' - that steps in and makes this 'giant' of small people with a little power, follow their own rules and the laws of this country. All the time, not just when someone is watching.

Finding Freedom

2009-07-22T11:36:00.000-07:00

This essay was originally published on the website of the FFUP, but as the internet-host will cease to exist, we re-publish this here.

April 13, 2005
By an Inmate in WI

What is freedom? Can we understand the concept of freedom before it is taken away from us?

For most people freedom is the ability to move around, come and go as we please. At least this is the 'freedom' that can be taken away from us.

To me, there is much more to freedom than this. As human beings, we are also free-thinkers, with the ability to act through our thoughts to come and go and pretty much do whatever we want.

When I first came to prison I thought my life was over. I was destined to be locked in a box and the key thrown away forever. I rebelled against this idea for several years before finally figuring it out: They can lock up the body, but never the mind.

I spent years devouring books as if they were the sustenance that kept me alive. I learned about everything, the world, politics, different trades, psychology, etc. The body remained trapped, yet the mind wrapped around memories that enabled me to smile in the face of the oppressors.

Slowly I changed from an angry youth who rebelled against the prison machine at every step. I became a man who cared about what today and tomorrow has in store for me. I found life worth living again. I found that freedom exists within my own mind and that freedom could never be taken from me.

So, I ask again, what is freedom? Simply, freedom is whatever we choose to make of it. So the next time you run to the store for a loaf of bread, hug your children, or think about how bad you have it, just remember how blessed you really are with your freedoms.

Wisconsin's Myth of Rehabilitation

2009-07-22T11:26:00.000-07:00

This essay was originally published on the FFUP website, about 2006, but the host will cease to exist later this year, therefore we re-publish this here.

By A Wisconsin Prisoner

In recent years there has been more than ever calls for longer sentences to combat the growing fear and rise of crime or criminal elements within our neighborhoods and communities. Not only has inspiring, but veteran politicians used the tougher sentencing scheme as a platform to ignite their political careers and to perpetuate this fear an outcry from everyday citizens which cut across all ethnic lines, whose lives has been touched directly or indirectly by crime, which has resulted in the overcrowding of jails and prisons all around the state of Wisconsin. With a significance primarily focused on the predominantly larger Black or Hispanic or minority areas.

And while more and more young Black and Brown males are being incarcerated for demonstrating antisocial behaviors such as drug addictions, robberies, homicides, sexual crimes, etc., many of these poor underprivileged and under-represented class of people suffer from some form of mental affliction ranging from severe to mild mental diseases and defects. It is these outcasted members of society who can't afford to hire competent attorney's for representation to defend them or help them get into drug rehabilitation clinics or mental health institutions to combat the poisonous chemical they have become dependent upon in an attempt to escape the realities of their living condition of impoverished and depressing neighborhoods. The rich rarely serve time in any prison for any kind of crime, as they can buy their way out with hiring a good high profile attorney and receive real justice. America and Wisconsin has a longstanding history of incarcerating the uneducated, untrained and oftentimes mentally handicapped minority who are ignorant of the laws and intricacies of the criminal justice system, so they are provided quarter defenses' if that, by state paid overworked, burnt out, underpaid State Public Defenders whose main objective is not to fight and mount any kind of real defense but to get the measly few thousand dollars the state is paying him/her and dispose of the case quickly, which oftentimes more than not are settled through plea agreements.

Such a quagmire are realities for minorities who has the unfortunate luck to get caught-up within the American System of Justice. It's also unfortunate that so many has come to believe in the political rhetoric and media propaganda that's locking up citizens and warehousing them in these industrialized institutions now called "Correctional Institutions," rather than what they are ("Prisons") will solve the problem of crime. This misrepresentation and manipulative power of circumstances as well environment are in my belief the root behind thousands of minorities arrested daily within Wisconsin's ghetto's for serious and petty crimes, in an attempt to feed their addictions from drugs to materialism, placing them in processes of legal and judicial entanglement.

I like so many Blacks in the ghetto's of America was also duped into criminal activities for whatever reason and has served as a conduit for the accumulation of political power and grandstanding by those politicians and aspiring political figures who complain about repeat criminal offenders (primarily blacks). While these hypocrites secretly make millions from the criminal elements of the streets. What realistic opportunity does an unskilled, undereducated ex-con have for success when you have a governmental body that has passed laws which says companies and corporations doesn't have to hire ex-offenders, Housing and Urban Development can deny you housing, school grants can be denied you simply because you're an felon, and there is no governmental assistance programs to act as a safety net for ex-offenders. The answer, of course is self-evident— he has no options, he must do more crime in order to survive or revocate himself.

Wisconsin like the Country has taken on the title "Correctional Institutions," from the root word [Correct] meaning to remove the errors or fault. This very play of words are design to manipulate and hoodwink the masses of society by the power structure and government into believing prisoners are not just being imprisoned as punishment, but are being rehabilitated.

The reality is that many prisoners rehabilitate themselves and yet, even though many are eligible for parole, in Wisconsin's penal system we remain imprisoned as society is methodically manipulated by politicians and Prison Unions who utilizes pernicious, insidious schemes to exploit and sensationalize with the help of the media those circumstances where an ex-offender gets out and re-offends.

This type of cunning and intellectual racism is superb. America and States like Wisconsin has a proud history of thwarting minority progress; It is not enough that most incarcerated prisoners are disadvantaged, but must be kept in a system of disenfranchisement and slavery for as long as humanly possible.

This is how rural "White America," and its dying farm industry has been revitalized, and how "white," underprivileged Americans become middle or the working class, as Wisconsin's Prison system is predominately 65% or better of Black and or African-American, while 95% of those hired to guard and administrate these places are White. It doesn't take Einstein to see the system is designed to make profit off black bodies as it has done since America and Western Europe invaded Africa in 1618.

And no accident that the Parole Board and Parole Chairman has been denying eligible prisoners parole, instead opting to give lengthy defferals such as 48 months, 60 months and longer as Parole Board Chairman Alonzo Graham, an ex-police approve these questionable and undoubtedly racially motivated deferrals. No program of rehabilitation and consequent social, economic regeneration can be effectively achieved, unless these depraved and racist tactics to keep incarcerated eligible prisoners incarcerated are addressed by the people of this state and its Governor. This kind of dissipation must be destroyed and removed from the penal system.

So long as this practice and program continues to operate as presently allowed, there can be no real chance for regeneration of minorities members back into society as productive citizens. Wisconsin Parole system needs to undergo serious changes in its policies and practices. In most states the Parole Board consist of two or more members to fairly and accurately reflect a panel that's impartial in body and thought, however, in Wisconsin there's only one person sitting as decision maker, determining whether or not parole should be granted.

This policy and practice is merely perfunctory, a sham process whose primary goal is to do nothing, but make society believe its affording prisoners a fair and accurate hearing for chances at parole. Through the genius of trickonolledgy politicians and the Wisconsin's DOC Parole Board has reinstituted a situation that's identical to institutionalized slavery because there are no grassroot support or outcries against the practices being promulgated in Wisconsin. No public outcry of the rampant inmate abuses and fraudulent misbehavior reports orchestrated and designed to keep prisoners incarcerated as former governor Tommy Thompson advocated, and although other states that employ loss of good time, the prisoner is allowed or afforded the chance to re-earn their loss time through good behavior, not so in Wisconsin penal system. This time is taken and never returned.

This is much like the slave who could not effectively stand up and challenge his/her slave master. This was true because the slave had no ally to help alter the balance of power in his /her favor.

Coming to the Boscobel Supermax

2009-07-22T11:21:00.000-07:00

By an inmate in WI

This essay was originally published at the FFUP website in 2005, but since the host will be closing down, we wanted to re-publish it here.

It was a dark, gloomy, overcast morning that greeted me as I awoke May 6, 2003. And the prognosis for the rest of the day didn't appear to be any better. Because today was to my the last day in Racine Correctional Institution. I was due to depart to the Boscobel Supermax! Ever since I first had the fight, which landed me in the hole with a battery charge and I got 8 days seg, 360 days disciplinary separation, there had been a feeling of impending dread.

There was little doubt in my mind to what would be my fate. Often times I had hastily made that declaration in the heat of an argument- 'I'll be going to Boscobel Supermax and you'll be going to Mercy Hospital.' It was one of my favorite sayings. How could I know that it would become a self-fulfilling prophecy in a matter of days.

So here I was, stark naked in a cell at 5:30, I am preparing to leave. The stories about the place abounded, and although I had already done lots of hole time in lots of joints around the country, this place invoked thoughts of doom deep inside me. All those that were unfortunate enough to be headed for the Supermax were stripped, shackled, and placed in a transport van. It was pouring out as we struggled to board the van. The ride began slowly as we made our way out of the institution and no one said a word as we all looked out the window lost in our individual thoughts. My thoughts were that this really won't be so bad. 'Damn, I messed up.'

As we ventured down the back roads, the somber moods seemed to lighten and we began to comment on the different homes and vehicles we saw. Things really picked up as we made a pit stop at a gas station, that had several cute girls standing around. Surprisingly, we talked all the way there with very little room for pause.

As we neared the town of Boscobel, things began to tense up, you could fell it in the air, the only thing to relieve the tension was when we saw this black guy walking down the streets of a small town outside of Boscobel. The sign read: Boscobel 11 miles, as we crossed over the Wisconsin River, and we all began fading from the conversation to enter into our own thoughts. Once again, I was thinking how beautiful this area was, with its rolling hills full of trees, open plains full of crops and small valleys- I had never seen anything like it before. This is the perfect place to live- except if you are in Boscobel Supermax.

We turned off the two- lane highway and out across the town. There wasn't too much to see until we headed toward another grove of trees only to discover that's where they built the joint. Upon first glance it appeared to be like all the rest of the prisons I had seen, but upon closer inspection, the outside didn't seem right. First of all, Boscobel doesn't have any of the ascetic needs of other joints so its looks are as stern as the rest of it.

After an amusingly long and thorough search of the van we were allowed to proceed from the gatehouse to the sally port. An all I could think of was: 'Who would want to sneak up on this joint? What a joke.' Even the officers from RCI were amazed at the security measures. Once we reached the sally port, the doors opened and 6 or 7 Boscobel officers were standing there. The white shirt called out a name and one of the guys got off the van and was immediately surrounded by the Boscobel staff and taken into the building. It was really as extreme as it sounds. They literally all took hold of him, as if the cuffs, waistband, and shackles weren't enough to restrain us.+

Then it was my turn. The same exact thing happened to me- every single guard placed his hand upon me as if I was Hannibal Lector!

Once inside, we were placed in strip cells and searched again. And from there they escorted me to my new home on alpha unit. There was an announcement over the PA that said two officers and one inmate were en route to Alpha. As I walked down a very long, brightly lit corridor, the officer instructed me not to look anywhere but straight ahead or else I would be taken down+ immediately.

We finally reach our destination: the alpha pod. I was placed in a cell in the fourth range. There was a concrete slab for a bed with a rather comfortable looking mattress; there were two cut away cubbyholes for storing personal items, a stainless steel toilet and sink combination which I always hate because of the cold on your butt when you flushed.

There were only two windows which one could peer out although there was little to see. I could look across from me into the adjacent room- a vestibule between two cells. But there didn't seem to be anyone in there. The other window was a small cut on the wall which allowed access to the hallway. I could see only two other windows with the name of occupants posted under them.

After taking a nap, I heard some voices, which sounded as if it were right in the room with me. So I sprang up to discover I was alone and that the voices were coming out of the vents. Some guy with a harsh, crackling voice was calling me I think, 'Hey, Young Blood.' He said. I said, 'I'm not no young buck dude- I'm 40 some years old.' 'Oh, I thought you were young, that's why I said that,' he responded. He told me who he was and gave me a crash course in how to do Supermax time. The things he said did help later on. But this was still about the most difficult time I've had to do and mainly it was because of the inmates- the kind of guys that get into the vent and talk for hours just crankin' out.

Because of the sensory deprivation, things take on a new meaning. Just to see people was a big bonus even if they were just guards. To hear people talk about real events, since there were no newspapers, TV news or radio to keep you informed**, I know why so many guys go completely insane within this kind of environment. It's because that's what it's designed to do- drive you crazy.

If I had not been for my faith in God, and through the help of some lovely people like FFUP, I might have lost my senses or lost my will to go on or to make the most of this situation. But I made it out of Boscobel and with the grace, mercy and love of God, I will soon make it home again.

+ taken down- tackled, pushed to the floor by all escorting guards- this is the 'face forward policy' and it causes much difficulty.

** Boscobel runs on a deprivation system called 'the level system.' Inmates are allowed more materials as they progress, although they never get to see or read local news and the TV channels are very limited. They only have a pen nib to write with. Even in the highest levels, this is a life of extreme deprivation.

Through The Looking Glass: A view inside Wisconsin's Supermax

2009-07-22T11:11:00.000-07:00

This essay was written and published on the Forum For Understanding Prisons (FFUP) website in 2006, and because the host will cease to exist, we re-publish it here.

By N. and M., prisoners in WSPF, Boscobel, Wisconsin

Given the crazed and hallucinatory results of confinement in WSPF's (i.e Wisconsin Secure Program Facility) belly, my reference to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland in this title appropriate-although it has somewhat improved all too often we've observed inmates who've buckled under the immense psychological pressure and become: Raving Lunatics who lash out in any way (usually verbally, seldom physically) at anyone and anything (TV, themselves, staff, family, other inmates); paranoid recluses, delusional recluses, perverted exhibitionists, or suicidal.

This madness I've experienced myself (i.e. the paranoid and delusional brand, it's the basic product of WSPF, apparently. I am not a psychologist. I can only analyze what I see and feel), caused by the sensory deprivation, lack of sunlight, separation from loved ones, severe social-segregation and (last but not least) mind/physical games and abuse by staff (e.g. slamming our traps and bolts and our doors, lying about us to keep us here, constantly creating new restrictions, tearing our cells apart and using pat and strip searches to harass us, putting us on ground food loaf and no clothing restrictions, giving our mail to other inmates, disciplining us for expressing our views in the mail, giving us dirt clothes, feeding us junk food and kiddie portions, letting other inmates harass us by yelling or banging on walls/doors constantly. Beating us.. You name it)- WSPF is surreal in a Steven King sorta way (well, maybe more in a Dean Koontz INTENSITY sorta way!) and its not something that can be blamed on the inmates, for we didn't create it.

For those of you who are internet-savvy, we suggest that you go to: www.uscourts.gov to review some of the cases concerning WSPF (WSPF was formerly called SMI- Supermax Correctional Institution, the former warden was Gerald Berge, now it's Richard Schneiter) - you'll find some that are ridiculous (e.g. by one inmate who likes to play with his genitals for every female staff member to see) - and some that are appalling (e.g. by an inmate who got his wrist broken by Sgt R. T. for refusing to kneel to be to be shackled, even though the inmate couldn't kneel because of a knee injury and he was permitted to forgo kneeling (note: WSPF is the only WI prison the requires all inmates to kneel and be shackled, regardless of their potential for violence). But the glorious 7th Circuit blew them off, sometimes by ignoring critical facts, other times by just refusing to apply the law- we know how it goes, because they've done it to me, Nate Lindell, personally.

But it's not just the courts who don't give a damn (sure, they occasionally pretend to care, appointing a friend of the judge to pose for the cameras while blatantly selling us out-a la Ed Garvey, where 90% of us class members wanted a trial but Judge Crabb and the 7th court forced a settlement on us) its the public that doesn't care AT ALL about what's going on at WSPF. Maybe the public doesn't know what's going on (wasn't that the excuse of the populace surrounding the WWII concentration camps) of maybe they choose not to care because they think we're all "the worst of the worst" as former Governor Tommy Thompson asserted. Maybe the populace surrounding WSPF doesn't care because they think torture of us prisoners is...appropriate.

Whatever the reason for the ambivalence towards WSPF by the populace, its wrong. We're not all "the worst of the worst" - few of us are unrepentantly evil. Although I'm (N.) a lifer, in prison because I killed someone while committing a burglary, I refuse to pursue a life of deviance, dishonorable behavior and self degradation- I did something foolish that can't be fixed and hurt good people but that doesn't mean I must continuously engage in criminal or evil behavior. I am more than a murderer- but WSPF does all it can to ensure we are criminal and nothing more.

As for my co-author (M.), "I am in here for burglarizing a house while people were away on vacation. I know that I did wrong but I did not hurt anyone, not would I have. I have spent most of my incarceration trying my utmost to educate myself and rehabilitate myself, despite the best efforts of WSPF to prevent that. I am a non-violent offender and will be getting out in 2 years."

WSPF strips us of the humanity we have and some of us had little-(ALWAYS by no fault of our own-nobody's born a sociopath but are made so) humanity in the first place. What sense does it make to torment and degrade people who've been tormented and degraded their entire life (such is both of our backgrounds. Both being abused and how amazing that we were able to come out of such lives), and smash any hope of becoming a fully developed human being?

By exposing guys to severe isolation and severe lack of physical interaction with other people. The coldness most of us learned at a young age stays with us. The psychologists here employ pills as the cure all end all and rarely engage in meaningful constructive help for inmates who refuse to take pills. Recently I spoke to a psychologist here, who told me that they only had to speak with inmates on clinical monitoring (pills) once a week and to those not on pills, once a month. And these "talks" only consist of either in front of your cell behind a steel door or behind a glass window in a no contact visit room, where we are handcuffed and some of us shackled.

My complaint about this is where is the social interaction necessary for anyone's growth? By treating all of us as of we are wild animals, even if we don't warrant such treatment, as most inmates rarely if ever display such behavior, but being labeled as such we become worse by the repetitive treatment by the staff and psychologists here, because the more a person is treated as if he is bad, the more he will believe that he is bad.

So due to the severe isolation and treatment of us as some how subhuman, we are lacking the emotional nurturing some of us need in order to teach us that we are not bad but chose to be. If there is a complete lack of empathy and love and want for us to succeed, I cannot reasonably see how anyone can justify the so-called programming here at WSPF.

The overwhelming vast majority of prisoners in all United State prisons come from dysfunctional homes where they were either treated very poorly or were out right abused and all in all, due to lack of nurturing we received as children, we grew up only looking out for ourselves. And since we had no one to love us, truly loved us, that is, teach us right from wrong, or to be there for us when we needed it the most, we developed survivalists' behavior, that is - everyone for themselves. And since we did not have people to help us out or nurture us, we do not trust others and that that the only person who cares about us is ourselves, so we often times turn to other areas to fill the void we received growing up.

Some of us turned to stealing, lashing out against anyone to gain material prosperity and not caring what happens to them because no one cared what happens to us. Some of us joined gangs, looking for love and respect we did not receive at home. Some of us turned to drugs, to escape the lack of love we feel for ourselves and the world around us. The list of things we turn to is endless. But the point is, we, most of us anyways, become this way due to the lack of love and nurturing we received at home while growing up. Some may not have been our parents fault. Some of our parents may have been single parents who had to work all day to feed us and simply didn't have time to spend with us and nurture us or teach us right from wrong. And some of our parents were either zoned out on drugs and cared only to be high and some were out and out abusive.

So what I am getting at is that how can anyone expect us to change our lives around and become productive, loving individuals if we never have been taught to be that way and we are not being taught that way here! And to add insult to injury, to be treated like we are a caged animal and no one here caring enough to take it upon themselves to do otherwise.

What is interesting about all that we have said relates to the programs here themselves. The programs here that they give us consist of them giving us a piece of paper with questions on it and having us watch a video that asks about the questions on the paper. The total lack of human empathy and contact by staff, the public, and programming here will virtually guarantee that little or no success will ever come out of WSPF. Because how can any of these so-called programs here be successful if they forget the most essential thing for our rehabilitation: our humanity.

Here's an example of the guys we've met at WSPF, you decide if they're "the worst of the worst". M. (I'm here for threatening a supervisor); L. (he's here, or was the last I knew, here for flashing a female guard); J. (he's here for agreeing to have sex with a female staff member who found him attractive); S. (he's here for having some skinhead literature); T. (he was here, for years, for trying to buy drugs); C. (he's here because his DA recommended it, despite good behavior) R.D. B. (here for threatening staff), T. (here for selling cigarettes a guard brought in); J. (here for writing a book about a prisoner escaping).

The list could go on and on, most of these guys here have been here for years. N., I'm here because I stabbed some gang leader who threatened to stab me if I didn't help him transfer money he extorted- I'm here, he isn't. Once some of us arrive, we did engage in further rule violations (mostly due to being driven crazy) that is now cited to seal our lease at WSPF - but even this additional poor behavior doesn't make us "the worst of the worst" unless, like WSPF administration, you are set on believing this.

Even if the public feels no ethical pangs about WSPF housing guys who really aren't "supercriminals", the public ought to care about WSPF sucking up unjustifiable amounts of its tax-dollars that OUGHT to be use to fund the UW system or any other productive US destructive government work for it costs AT LEAST twice as much to house an inmate at WSPF than it does to house them in a "normal prison. No big surprize, for at WSPF guards act as butlers and footmen, bringing us everything we need (food, clothing, meds, mail, etc,) and health costs are understandably higher for inmates who spend 24/7 in their cells alone. WSPF currently holds about 350 inmates, but there's more than 100 vehicles out front! Yikes!

The sheer amount of money being spent to run this place can be offset by allowing inmates here to do some of the jobs the state pays staff here to do. This is the only institution in the state that doesn't have inmates doing such as cooking, cleaning. laundry, mowing the lawn, janitorial etc. The state has to pay large fees for outside people to do these jobs, whereas if they allow inmates to have some of these jobs, the state could literally save millions of dollars that we could spend on things better than this.

Giving inmates jobs also give the inmates a sense of purpose and pride and gets inmate involved with becoming a responsible person, teaching them job skills, and taking pride in having a sense of accomplishment. And the out of the cell time would drastically improve morale of the inmates here.

Much more could be said about how Wisconsin as before WSPF (Supermax) was built. The inmates that were problematic were put in segregation units for long periods of time, but had a much greater opportunity for release from this status than inmates at WSPF. As shown by the report filed by Walter Dickey, December 20, 2005, who is the monitor in the case brought against Wisconsin's DOC (Department of Corrections) the monitor reports that inmates are being over- classified to WSPF simply to fill bed space. Meaning that the DOC is sending people there who shouldn't be there!

So this is the proof that some officials have little intent to release inmate here, but plan on keeping them solely to justify keeping this place, not to mention the cozy jobs this place provides and the state and federal money being put into city of Boscobel and Grant county for the upkeep of this prison.

WSPF has experienced some exposure as a crazy-maker, boondoggle-pushed by a former Governor with feeling of inadequacy who instead of buying a mustang built a supermax (like the kids in Texas and California)-so now calls itself a "program facility" and prison officials had told the media how it's now a changed prison. Nothing has changed but some names- the "level system " is now called a "phase system" and inmates are still kept at WSPF for years longer, based on "warnings" or merely having a "poor attitude". Secret meetings are held where decisions are made to promote/demote inmates to different level phases. We are not even told who types the decisions/what we must do to leave or avoid demotion or who's making accusations against us.

They tell us that they are going to have a meeting to review whether we will be advanced to a higher phase and we have no opportunity to speak on our behalf at such meetings to refute any unfounded allegations against us at these meetings. We are only told that such meetings are going to take place. Then they give us a slip stating that our so-called evaluations, and for some the so-called bad conduct listed on it we did not have the ability to refute, is for example: they said that one inmate's cell smells badly, they told another that he needed a hair cut, they told another that he made inappropriate gestures to staff (without any staff telling him he was doing so or what the gestures were) and the list goes on from here.

Now how is it possible that inmates here are determined a threat for having long hair or if their cells smells badly? What does either have to do with threatening or dangerous behavior that so-called warrants the stay for inmates here?

Then the same sheets tell us we have to do certain programs that I described above, (that is a piece of paper and a video to watch) they tell us that we have to do these programs, and we do them, and we still are not advanced! Some inmates here have done ALL the programs here and yet they remain where they are.

We still do not get contact visits. We get no more than 2 (!) hours a week in the dog kennel outside recreation cages. We can only have up to 10 publications (all other Wisconsin prisoners can have 25) we can't work and earn money. We're stuck in our cells 24/7 subject to screams of those who can't handle the stress. We have staff looking to make us crazy, slamming our traps, lying about us and bragging about their schemes to justify their cozy jobs. It's amazing to us that ANY prisoners here would have any respect for the "system" or give a damn about obeying ethics that the system itself ignores.

A way back, as some may recall, a lot of WSPF inmates were released due to their mental health problems. Some, (including me, N., due to paranoid and mood disorders) were sent to Wisconsin's Resource Center (WRC) which also employed a "level system " WRC's level system, unlike WSPF's had inmates moseying around out doors within 2 weeks-it only went downhill for me after I (Nate) was moved to a unit with violent inmates (apparently because I wrote many group complaints or suits for others/where a guy who hated whites attacked me and another threatened to stab me. But the point is, WSPF's level system (now Phase-) system has no intention of releasing us to general population conditions-it takes years to get to walk around. Yet at WRC it takes weeks! As social interaction is critical to rehabilitation, yet WSPF blatantly denied his, with no justification-WSPF's labeling itself as a "program" is just an attempt to hide the reality from the public. Indeed D.J. and I are on a "long-term administrative confinement " and must do AT LEAST two more years at WSPF despite our sterling behavior for years!

Much more could be said about WSPF. E.g. how all of the staff end up marrying each other and act as a crime family, squeezing protection from the taxpayers and pain from prisoners; how even the tinyest of misconduct is the basis for severe abuse and degradation; how staff lie about us to keep us here. However, one can't appreciate all of this unless they go through it.

What we'd like the recipients of this letter to do is come up here, contact the guys noted in this letter, just set up your cameras and microphones in the hallway for a few days- ask the crazed inmates Why they ask like they do. Ask the administration why they impose all the hardships on us (it has no legitimacy in behavior modification psychology- punishment is far less effective than rewarding good behavior). Maybe then you'll agree with us that if rehabilitation of inmates is truly desired the following needs to occur for all WSPF inmates:

An end to abuse and punishment
personal analysis of who we are, what got us in prison, what we are seeking and can rationally expect.
Diverse, intense job-training
Diverse, intense social training
Excessive outdoor exercise
Diverse, intense education
Employ a level system identical to that used at WRC.

June 12th 2006

A gulag of our own

2009-07-22T11:07:00.000-07:00

Comparing WSPF with other US control unit prisons: A gulag of our own

By a WI Prisoner

Note: this essay was written in 2005, for the FFUP Newsletter Bridge of Voices. The host of this site will soon cease to exist, that is why we re-publish this here.

The dearth of inmates who actually fit the WSPF criteria of 'assaultive to staff', gang leadership, and 'escape artists', shows the folly of continuing to maintain a very costly facility in the subsequent era of fiscal deficit. The cost rises when almost all work, kitchen, maintenance, laundry, etc. must be performed by highly paid staff instead of the routine prison practice of having this work done by inmates of the rate of 15 to 30 cents per hour. With the DOC budget approaching One Billion dollars, can the electorate continue to support this 'white elephant' tucked in the southwest corner of the state?

One activist, L. F., points out other problems in this abhorrent correctional system, surely an extension of slavery, not withstanding the 13th amendment: a high percentage of inmates are Black or Hispanic (as opposed to their representation in the general population of WI) whereas ALL the correctional officials at Boscobel are white. Visits for most inmates are facilitated only by teleconference, hardly worth the trip from Milwaukee.

The free bus has recently been eliminated. One inmate writes: 'This is the loudest unit (level3). I've been in since arrival. It's been a few weeks since my level four hearing but I'm still here. NOT promising, I'm afraid. But the reason I'll be given, if not promoted, will be fun.' This guy was demoted to 3 for purportedly not turning in a library book in time.

One of the goals of a little grassroots prison reform group, Forum for Understanding Prisons (FFUP), is the education of the electorate on the abuses inherent in the administrative segregation management style at WSPF. With this in mind, they have conducted a national survey of other 'Control Type' supermax facilities, including the federal ADX facility in Colorado. In many ways, the results show that Wisconsin's Gulag is one of the worst and most punitive of the US states. Let's take a look at the 'state of the art' facility in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. (although no prisoner, including Unabomber Ted Kaszynnski can see the mountains). In contrast to WSPF, the inmates have: network , cable, and educational TV, whereas WSPF has 3 channels for religions and educational use. MSNBC has been eliminated. Meals in Colorado include hot breakfast. coffee, tea and fresh fruit. The Federal judge (Crabb) in WSPF lawsuit declined to prohibit 'nutraloaf'-use in WSPF, an amalgamation of leftovers used to punish recalcitrant inmates. ADX has a shower stall in each cell that can be used anytime, whereas WSPF has limited use to three short periods per week even though the stalls are in the cells. In ADX the inmates can possess a multitude of property: books , shoes, pictures. sweat clothes; caps and gloves; whereas WSPF has few such allowable items. Recreation at ADX is offered 6 times per week with as many as 12 fellow prisoners. Although there is 'recreation' at WSPF, it means going to another very small cell, with no equipment, no water or toilet, and a 'window' in the ceiling that lets in only light (update: as per WSPF lawsuit. there have been installed outside cages for recreation).

An inmate writer from Red Onion Supermax Facilty in Pound Virginia, complained of use of stun gun devices and this is a situation that has not been repeated at WSPF. He cites the death of a 50 year old man thereafter being shot with a taser devise. In Wisconsin, deaths are not routinely disclosed and families have no details available as to circumstances, although there is a bill in the legislature that would create an independent board to investigate all death. At present, there is no accountability to families, legislators or citizen-electors.

The respondents from Dade County Correctional Institution in Florida cite poor medical and psychiatric care. This same problem is endemic at WSPF and cited on the Federal case by Attorney Ed Garvey: 'It makes absolutely no sense to have a mentally ill inmate entombed in a cell.' Those on psychotropic medications are increasingly sensitive to heat: the temperature at WSPF routinely exceeds 90 degrees F in summer. Until AC is installed (if ever), the DOC is instructed to pass out cups of ice but the once a day routine is teasingly inadequate.As a result of the Garvey lawsuit against SPF, there has been an air conditioning unit installed and an outdoor recreation unit built, and some of the mentally ill inmates have been removed, although the definition of mentally ill remains very limited.

Michigan has a 'supermax' behavior modification control unit complex located in Munising, a rural location and the respondent cites the same 'stale, dusty, recycled air' problem as we have at WSPF These sealed environments are invariably cold in winter and hot in summer. He states a 'central air system' is activated in summer. Michigan has a second high risk security prison in IONIA (L6). The respondent cites lack of accountability of staff (falsifying 'refusals', etc.), adverse cell conditions, lack of access to Rec. and Law Library, and withholding of food as punishment, all complaints heard at WSPF. In contrast, they have desks in their cells and access to private TV at some levels and the Michigan co-pay is 3 dollars, compared to 7.50 copay at WSPF.

One of the most notorious secure housing units (SHU) is the Pelican Bay SHU facility on the rural north coast of CA. The respondent decries lack of human contact, necessity to 'snitch' to get removed from most restrictions, no sunlight but , as opposed to WSPF- no camera in cell. (at WSPF some cells have cameras, not all- this was a change required by the lawsuit). He cites a small 10 by 20 recreation yard, actually concrete with 20 foot high plastic walls. This is what the inmates at WSPF have to forward to if their outdoor recreation facilities are ever opened to them Another problem at Pelican Bay is difficulty of access to local courts. When a staged fight between two opposing gang-oriented inmates was recorded on videotape and leaked to the press by a disgruntled guard, the subsequent lawsuit fell on deaf earsÂ in the local court. When several of the co-conspirator guards were indicted, the local jury was quick to exonerate as the town's economy is wholly dependent of the prison payroll.

In Wisconsin, only a few inmate (pro-se) lawsuits have reached the court of appeals level. Most are dismissed at the circuit court level in Dane Co. (DOC Headquarters) or Grant Co., the location of WSPF. Inmate B. Freeman tried to challenge his transfer to WSPF in a suit against Warden Berge but was dismissed on numerous procedural technicalities, dealing with 'administrative remedies' and time constraints. Inmate M. challenged the behavior modification and mail policy at WSPF and met with limited success. The prison litigation Reform Act (both Federal and State) precludes easy access to the courts to either challenge conditions of confinement, administrative rules, or even matters related to conviction. Whereas previously an 'indigent' inmate litigator could get a waiver of filing fees, that is no longer available (except to out of state prisoners) forcing a petitioner to allocate a years salary (150 dollars) to gain a hearing before a circuit court judge. 'pay me now or pay me later' is the mantra. A free citizen would be charged only a days pay.

Thus, the only real way to challenge the oppressive conditions at the various supermax prisons are with the help of watchdog groups such as the ACLU. The recent victory in Federal Dist court of WI in reassessing some procedures at WSPF was assisted by the ACLU. In New Mexico, the ACLU was instrumental in achieving a 'settlement' via lawsuit which addressed some of the same abuses seen at WSPF: lack of mental health assessment for inmates, specific screening criteria, and added staff.

The FFUP survey also looks at supermax prisons in TN, DE, VA, KS and MD. One inmate in MD write that, after 22 years, he still feels anger, anxiety, periods of rage, hallucinations, claustrophobia, insomnia, and loss of appetite. He states various rationales for taking inmates to the supermax (MCAC) as 'those with enemies, assaultive behavior, or too many rule infractions.' He laments loss of all personal property once admitted to MCAC. The same is true at WSPF where most inmate property gets sent out or destroyed upon reception. Upon release (to max), one has to start all over in acquisition of allowable personal property.

Many of the conditions at the nation's supermaxes are summarized by the Coalition for Prisoner's Rights in Sante Fe, NM. They state 'from the beginning, control units have relied on sensory deprivation. People are confined in tiny cells, the size of a parking space (think: living in your bathroom) for 24 hours a day. Educational or therapeutic programming is nonexistent.' Although WSPF has a CGIP program, they use the worst of the control unit techniques in strip searches, shackling, and isolating prisoners. The Coalition correctly states: 'It is largely the most vulnerable prisoners who end up in extended isolation who may well be the least able to withstand its rigors and are most susceptible to complete mental breakdown or suicide.' This indeed is a terrible legacy established at WSPF under the authority of the people of the state of Wisconsin.

Is this responsible use of taxpayer resources? The Wisconsin Catholic Conference calls this issue one of the 'common good.' The simple question is: 'what did we get in public benefits as a result of expenditure of this money?' It costs twice as much to house an inmate at WSPF as it does in a regular WI prison- 26 thousand a year to about 56 thousand (2001 figures). Are we safer? Most of these inmates will be returned to society after years of isolation, filled with rage and unmet needs. Would we be better off with a humane system that mandates treatment and retraining?

A disproportionate amount of DOC spending occurs as a result of this misguided attempt to 'micromanage' WSPF's 300-some prisoners. With a mandated 4% cut by the Doyle administration for all state agencies, the DOC has to squeeze its other agencies to maintain WSPF employment levels. Nice work if you can get it, notwithstanding the not uncommon reports of domestic abuse in WI Co. families.

The future of WSPF needs to be reassessed at all levels by citizens and their watchdog groups concerned with realistic stewardship of state budget money and humane treatment of incarcerated individuals.

Other than the removal of the most obviously mentally ill inmates, and the change of status to a maximum level institution, WSPF conditions remain the same as before the lawsuit, thought by many to be among the worst in the nation. With the status change to maximum, inmates can be housed at WSPF with less due process, and the floodgates are open. Most people still call it 'the supermax' however, because conditions are like those of a supermax.

Other than to tear the place down, WSPF could be converted to a regular maximum facility with school, recreation and library. Or convert the facility to a training center for DOC recruits, keeping 125 inmates under close supervision, yet let them interact with staff-in â€“training so each group can establish better understanding of their role in the life of our own little gulag in rural Wisconsin.

In the final analysis, we are forced to admit that we may have the worst punitive facility, supermax or otherwise, in the nation (I'll look it up) once commented: 'you can judge the degree of civilization of a society by looking at its prisons.' We have to do better.

We are wondering how many people must die here in the Supermax?

2006-01-01T05:09:00.000-08:00

"We are wondering how many people must die here in the Supermax before they find the source of this problem, these so-called 'invesigations' the department claims to have launched is like a dud firecracker. There will never be a 'bang' to solve this problem, not when you are investigating yourself.

We are wondering what happened with no investigation when the brother Lornell Evans died up here Oct. 2, 2005? We don't even remember seeing an initial report in the newspaper from State Corrections Department John Dipko - is it because Mr. Evans is black and mr. Rundel is white? No, we are not playing the race card here, just laying out the evidence. We are all prisoners in my book, and every prisoner is my fellow brother of this ongoing struggle for peace & justice at the hand of the opprerssors. It could be because of liability, the way Mr. Lornell Evans died, and the way mr. Steven T. Rundel died.

After a major operation Mr. Evans was brought back here to the Supermax, when he should have stayed at the hospital where he could be watched by trained doctors & nurses, but here they just left him in a cell and after he (Mr. Evans) informed them that his stomach hurts and he could not eat, they never sent him back out to the hospital or no institution nurse at this facility came down to check him - the next day he was dead (R.I.P. Soljah).

Now since Mr. Steven T. Rundel died at his own hands, and was a convicted child molester, it is easier for the oppressors to drag his name through the mud, knowing the public will turn a blind eye to a child molester's death. We can't play into the oppressors' hands, I'm on the inside and know better, we asked why have two people died here this year? Why wasn't Mr. Evans sent back to the hospital? Why happened with the Jones-El and Johnson- v. Berge, et al. Class Action Agreement that all prisoners must be screened by a psychologist for any kind of mental illness before they are sent here to the Supermax - someone failed in this screening process.

Mr. Steven T. Rundel clearly had some kind of mental illness to take his life, he was not there a good month-and-a-half. John Dipko the Department spokesman said "the Department has launched an invetigation into how Rundel was able to construct a noose from his bedsheets and hanging himself without attracting notice of prison personnel." Even a monkey will figure this out. Prison personnel don't give a damn about prisoners' well-being, and I'm in a room constructed the same way as Mr.Rundel's and there's no place in this room to hang yourself but on the bars on the door, and the crazy thing about it is that the bars play no purpose in supporting the door, they can cut the two bars off the door. This was an incident just waiting to happen - the doors on Alpha unit don't have these bars on it, so why do these doors need them? This is monkey science. Take the bars off the doors, they don't need them - their investigation will go nowhere.

We on the inside are callling for help. How many more must die, hear our voices, hear our cry comrades. The bars on the door are about five feet off the floor so Mr. Rundel had to kneel down with his feet still on the floor. Rounds: all staff are supposed to make their rounds on the range: white shirts, unit manager, nurses, social workers, and crisis workers. The white shirts, unit manager, nurses, social workers, and crisis workers might come on the unit and sign in at the sergeant cage, but no rounds on the ranges where the prisoners are at, unless it's some kind of emergencyor a prisoner is getting suited up on. This will be the time you can catch them on the range - 'some' sergeants make rounds - not all - all frontlline officer will make rounds - and one psychologist, Dr. Hughes has for the last 30 days been making rounds once a week cell to cell asking prisoners if they are okay. No-one else is concerned. So this is how Mr. Rundel hung himself without attracting notice of prison personnel."[January 1st, 2006)

Another prisoner has died here at WSPF

2005-10-05T05:16:00.000-07:00

Letter from WSPF prisoner:

Another prisoner has died here at WSPF.
Mr. Lornell Evans #385275 onFoxtrot unit cell # 106 on October 2, 2005 Sunday.

Here's a short run down so please investigate and get the word out. Some prisoner said Mr. Evans had some kind of cancer - prostrate cancer or stomach cancer and he had an operation 2 or 3 weeks ago. One brutha said Mr. Evans was about 210 lbs. and within weeks he was 150 lbs.

Now on October 1, 2005 around 5:00 pm, Sgt. Sickinger stop at Mr. Evans door and asked him why he was not eating. Evans stated 'I can't eat because my stomach hurt'. Sgt. S.r stated: 'Well if you don't eat I have to write up a report', then she told him he was off back of cell. This is the last time I heard Mr. Evans talk. He was not on medical observation, we don't know why, after a major operation.

Now Mr. Anthony Stevens #288268 in Cell 107 next door to Mr. Evans said he was asking the c.o.'s for ice and they would not bring it to him, I guess H.S.U. (Health Service Unit) got him on an ice restriction where he get ice from them when he need it.

Now October 2, 2005 to my knowledge Mr. Evans did not eat lunch or dinner, no one checked on him at 11:15 am count, at 3:30 pm medication pass c/o Taylor passed him up, no check on him, 4:15 pm count; Sgt. Patton did count no check, at 4:20 pm dinner, Sgt. Patton, Sgt. Cook and another c.o. passed him up; and about two minutes later they came back beating on Mr. Evans' door, calling his name over and over. About 4:35 pm they suited up on Mr. Evans and did a cell entry running in there yelling and screaming and when they drag him out the cell, c.o Sc. said 'no pulse.' Then they did an emergency count, knocking on everybody's door, making sure they move. Lt. G., and nurse M. was down - other prisoners said Mr. Lornell Evans' body was stiff when he was dragged out -there no way Mr. Evans should have been back here and that sick: and staff and nurses should have checked on him every 15 minutes.