Wisconsin’s prison problem getting worse, not better

It shouldn’t take this long. The state of Wisconsin has been plagued by poor conditions in its prisons for decades, and it appears the problems are getting worse instead of better. Governor Tony Evers ran on a platform of improving prison conditions and reducing the prisoner population, when he first ran for office in 2018. That was five years ago, but few improvements have been made. Now Evers has a plan for the state’s aging, outdated and overcrowded prison system. He wants to move prisoners from the institution in Waupun to other correctional institutions  in the state. That is because Waupun is overpopulated by more than 100 prisoners. But like Waupun, the other prisons have staffing issues too, even though the starting pay for guards has been raised significantly to try to attract new workers. This is not a new problem. It has been building for a long time. There have been lawsuits and FBI investigations into how Wisconsin treats its prisoners, and both Waupun and the prison in Green Bay are on lockdown, and have been for many months. Prisoners are being denied exercise time and visitations because of staffing issues. It is sad that despite pledging to make fixing our prisons a priority, it seems we are no closer to improving conditions than we were when Evers called fixing the prison problems a priority.