Wisconsin’s prison population hit a record high this week, a new milestone for a system that has for decades held thousands more people than it was designed for.
According to figures released Friday, the state’s Department of Corrections held 23,854 people in custody. That’s 28 above the record set in 2019 and nearly 6,000 beyond the prisons’ intended capacity.
Wisconsin’s prisons have been severely over capacity for at least 20 years, prompting officials to add bunk beds and increase the number of people per cell. The three prisons that house only women are particularly overcrowded. There, staff have converted offices to dorms and, at times, set up beds in gyms.
Sarah Buckingham, who is incarcerated at Robert E. Ellsworth Correctional Center in Racine, told Wisconsin Watch in May that prison officials “just cram us in wherever they can.” That minimum-security women’s prison was designed to house 230 people. As of Friday, it held 495, more than twice its design capacity. The state’s other minimum-security women’s prison, the Milwaukee Women’s Center, was designed for 42 but now holds 104, making it Wisconsin’s most crowded prison.
Contacted for comment, Department of Corrections spokesperson Kevin Hoffman said the department has “extremely limited statutory authority on its own to reduce the prison population.”
The new record comes years after Gov. Tony Evers vowed to ease prison crowding in a state that stands out nationally for disproportionately incarcerating Black residents. In a 2018 Democratic gubernatorial debate, Evers — who has spoken of “second chances” and “redemption” — called a goal by activists to cut Wisconsin’s prison population by half “worth accomplishing.”
But the Republican-led Legislature has stymied such efforts, spokesperson Britt Cudaback said, pointing to the governor’s “eight years of budget requests to reform our state’s justice system.”
The governor doesn’t choose who goes to prison or for how long, Cudaback added. In 1998, Wisconsin legislators adopted one of the country’s most punitive “truth-in-sentencing” laws, requiring most prisoners to spend their full sentence behind bars, without the possibility of parole. Republican Gov. Tommy Thompson signed the bipartisan legislation into law.
Policy changes such as reducing sentences or diverting more people to treatment would require action by judges or the Legislature, though the governor’s administration can singlehandedly address revocations, a common way people end up in prison.
People on court-ordered supervision can end up back in prison if they allegedly violate the rules of their release, even without committing a new crime. In 2021, the Department of Corrections raised the threshold for revocations in certain circumstances, which corresponded with an initial dip in technical revocations.
Evers recently took another unilateral step that could reduce the prison population, though likely modestly. In April, he signed executive orders allowing eligible Wisconsin prisoners to apply to have their sentences shortened for the first time in 25 years.
It’s unclear how many people might receive commutations or how much their sentences might be shortened. The Commutation Advisory Board heard testimony from a dozen applicants at its inaugural hearing on Aug. 21. A second hearing, featuring another dozen applicants, is scheduled for Sept. 18.
Not just tight quarters
Overcrowding stresses prisons in a variety of ways, increasing dangers and reducing quality of life for both prisoners and correctional officers. A higher prison population requires more officers, who can be tough to recruit and retain. In 2023, officials locked down Waupun Correctional Institution — canceling programs and confining prisoners to their cells for months — because they didn’t have enough officers to operate normally, Wisconsin Watch reporting revealed.
Today, the state’s adult prison system is short about 658 full-time correctional officers and sergeants, the latest DOC figures show. The system has 35 fewer people in those positions than it did in May, even as the prison population grew by about 250.
A higher prison population can increase competition for limited spots in treatment, education and work programs designed to prepare prisoners for release.
Already, many prisoners wait months or years for those opportunities, and advocates say increased crowding could keep people in prison longer or contribute to their return — a cycle that could further pack prisons.
A prisoner at Taycheedah Correctional Institution in Fond du Lac told Wisconsin Watch that crowded conditions make it harder to offer a key type of counseling. Since 2019, the maximum-security women’s prison has allowed prisoners to meet with certified peer support specialists, fellow prisoners trained and paid by the Department of Corrections to share their own experiences and support others navigating challenges behind bars.
Converting more spaces into dorms leaves fewer places for peer specialists to hold one-on-one meetings, said Natalie Murphy, who has worked as a peer specialist for seven years. Fewer than 10 peer specialists serve the 1,074-person facility, Murphy said.
“There’s a huge waitlist, and we are trying to accommodate all of the people, because we want to help people,” Murphy said. “But one of the biggest problems is that we can’t hire anybody because we do not have physical space to work in.”
Solutions elusive
Policymakers and prisoner advocates disagree about how to ease crowding. In the major revamp he proposed last year, Evers called for, among other things:
- Closing the nearly 130-year-old Green Bay Correctional Institution.
- Transforming Waupun Correctional Institution into a “vocational village.”
- Converting the troubled Lincoln Hills School from a juvenile prison to an adult prison.
- Converting John C. Burke Correctional Center in Waupun into a women’s prison.
- Expanding a program that allows some people incarcerated for nonviolent crimes to qualify for early release by completing substance use treatment.
Together the changes would reduce the state’s prison capacity by 700, the governor’s office said. The plan drew criticism from Republican lawmakers, who pointed to the state’s crowded prisons as a sign that the state needs more space in its prisons, not less.
State Sen. Van Wanggaard, R-Racine, said the answer is “right-sizing” the population by “adding additional beds, reducing overcrowding and making facilities safer for not only our inmates, but for our staff,” WPR reported.
Last October, the State of Wisconsin Building Commission released $15 million to plan for Evers’ proposed changes.
“The governor’s corrections proposal would have paved the way for much-needed facilities upgrades and expanded programming to address many of the challenges we face today,” DOC spokesperson Hoffman said. “Unfortunately, the Legislature did not fully fund the plan and only provided $15 million for planning.”
Wisconsin spends about $1.06 billion a year on its prisons, or 5% of the state budget. State officials estimate it costs roughly $50,000 to incarcerate one person for a year in Wisconsin. By comparison, the state spends around $15,000 a year per student in the public K-12 school system.
Meanwhile, some states have significantly reduced their prison populations in recent decades. New York has cut the number of people behind bars by half since 2008 as a result of various factors, including ending incarceration for most technical violations of supervision rules. Republican-led Texas has closed several prisons as a result of bipartisan criminal justice reforms, including a greater focus on substance abuse treatment and diversion.
Brittany Carloni contributed reporting.
Wisconsin prisons hit record population as crowding strains staffing and programs is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.
