{"id":299597,"date":"2025-11-18T18:28:14","date_gmt":"2025-11-18T18:28:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/299597\/"},"modified":"2025-11-18T18:28:14","modified_gmt":"2025-11-18T18:28:14","slug":"report-flags-solitary-confinement-overcrowding-in-wisconsin-doc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/299597\/","title":{"rendered":"Report flags solitary confinement, overcrowding in Wisconsin DOC"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you or someone you know is considering suicide, call or text the three-digit suicide and crisis lifeline at 988. Resources are available\u00a0online here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A recently-released report<\/a> details problems at Wisconsin prisons including high staff turnover, overcrowding and issues with solitary confinement. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Wisconsin\u2019s Department of Corrections paid the firm Falcon, Inc. roughly $500,000 to complete the year-long review of the prison system\u2019s adult facilities.<\/p>\n

News with a little more humanity<\/p>\n

WPR\u2019s \u201cWisconsin Today\u201d newsletter keeps you connected to the state you love without feeling overwhelmed. No paywall. No agenda. No corporate filter.<\/p>\n

Among other issues, the report zeroed in on the department\u2019s policies for solitary confinement, officially known as restrictive housing.<\/p>\n

Alarms raised about solitary confinement of people with serious mental health struggles<\/p>\n

The report raised concerns about how often people are locked up in solitary confinement while dealing with serious mental health issues.<\/p>\n

\u201cIndividuals with SMI (serious mental illness) placed in restrictive housing are more likely to become violent and, if released from restrictive housing, are more likely to return,\u201d the report\u2019s authors noted, citing outside research. \u201cThose individuals housed in restrictive housing are also more likely to die by suicide than those living in other housing settings.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the last day of March 2025, 872 adults were locked up in solitary confinement through the DOC, making up close to 4 percent of the prison population. That was roughly on par with the percentage of inmates in solitary confinement six years prior.<\/p>\n

A significant number of those in solitary confinement \u2014 101 people on the day measured in March 2025 \u2014 were classified as having a serious mental health issue.<\/p>\n

The report noted that people who spend extended periods of time in solitary confinement are more likely to be part of the DOC\u2019s mental health caseload, meaning they\u2019ve been referred for mental health needs of varying severity. Sixty-nine percent of the people locked up in solitary confinement for more than 120 days were part of the DOC\u2019s mental health caseload. By comparison, 46 percent of the general prison population was on that mental health caseload.<\/p>\n

The report did commend the DOC for attempting to limit extended stays in solitary confinement by adopting a May 2024 policy that requires a higher-up to approve solitary confinement stays longer than 120 days.<\/p>\n

It urged DOC to change its solitary confinement policies by creating \u201calternative\u201d units for people with serious mental illness, \u201cso they can automatically be diverted from restrictive housing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"AAs of Tuesday, Oshkosh Correctional Institution had the most confirmed cases of COVID-19 of any facility in the state prison system. Angela Major\/WPR<\/p>\n

DOC urged to change practice of using solitary confinement for people on suicide watch<\/p>\n

Per its policies, the DOC can send people to solitary confinement as \u201cdisciplinary separation,\u201d which is punishment for bad behavior. <\/p>\n

It also sends people to solitary confinement through what it calls \u201cadministrative confinement\u201d which is when someone is deemed a threat to themselves or others if they\u2019re kept with the general prison population. Typically, that extends to people who are flagged for \u201csuicide watch,\u201d if they\u2019re deemed to be at risk for suicide. <\/p>\n

But putting suicidal people into solitary confinement cells is likely making the situation worse, the report warns.<\/p>\n

\u201cObservation cells are typically in restrictive housing units, which is problematic,\u201d the report notes. \u201cIndividuals on observation status are not allowed therapeutic items, visits, phone calls, or recreation.\u201d<\/p>\n

The report urges the DOC to stop that practice, and instead move its areas for observing at-risk people to \u201cmore appropriate environments that support therapeutic care and patient safety.\u201d<\/p>\n

Marianne Oleson, an activist with Ex-Incarcerated People Organizing of Wisconsin, described the DOC\u2019s existing solitary confinement policies as barbaric. She spent five years incarcerated in Wisconsin.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s torture,\u201d Oleson said of solitary confinement. \u201cAs someone who has spent time in their quote-unquote \u2018restrictive housing\u2019 unit for being suicidal, you\u2019re only compounding the harm and the hurt.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said solitary confinement left her with permanent psychological scars.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy mind was my weapon,\u201d Oleson said. \u201cMy mind was destroying me, and the answer they gave me was to lock me down with that weapon. And I nearly broke. I\u2019ve seen women break, honestly.\u201d<\/p>\n

In an email, DOC spokesperson Beth Hardkte acknowledged that most observation cells for people on suicide watch are located in the restrictive housing units of prisons, although she said there is no specific DOC policy requiring them to be located there.<\/p>\n

\u201cObservation cells are specially designed to ensure safety and property can be restricted to prevent self-harm,\u201d she said. \u201cObservation status also requires more intensive staffing and availability of psychological or health care staff.\u201d<\/p>\n

Report also highlights issues with overcrowding, high staff turnover<\/p>\n

Also noted in the report are struggles with \u201cstaff attrition\u201d and a large proportion of inexperienced staff members.<\/p>\n

\u201cWIDOC has experienced a great deal of staffing changes, with a
significant number of the current staff hired during or after the COVID19 pandemic,\u201d the report notes.<\/p>\n

And it detailed the DOC\u2019s struggles with overcrowding. Nearly every state prison is holding more people than it was designed for. On average, men\u2019s prisons were at 130 percent capacity and women\u2019s prisons were at 166 percent capacity.<\/p>\n

That overcrowding is leading to delays for people who are supposed to be transferred from one prison to another, the report notes. In some cases, that means people aren\u2019t locked up according to their designated security level, such as men classified as medium-security remaining in a maximum-security prison.<\/p>\n

Currently, there are more than 23,000 adults locked up in Wisconsin\u2019s prisons \u2014 making them overcapacity by more than 5,000 people. The state\u2019s prison population is now roughly at pre-pandemic levels, which is more than triple the size of the prison population in 1990.<\/p>\n

Oleson said the report highlights the need for policy and legislative changes to cut back on the number of Wisconsinites behind bars.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt confirms what we have said for years,\u201d Oleson said. \u201cWisconsin\u2019s prisons are dangerously overcrowded, under-resourced and in desperate need of healing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wisconsin\u2019s Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, who first took office in 2019, has said he wants to decrease Wisconsin\u2019s prison population, although that reduction hasn\u2019t happened in practice. Some Republican members of the GOP-controlled Legislature<\/a> have said they oppose his goals of eventually decreasing prison beds and expanding certain early release programs.<\/p>\n

In a statement, DOC Secretary Jared Hoy says the report by Falcon, Inc. shows the prison system is \u201cmoving in the right direction.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFalcon experts recognized the work of countless dedicated DOC employees to modernize our health care and restrictive housing policies,\u201d Hoy\u2019s statement said. \u201cAs much as we\u2019ve done, we can always do more, do better and the recommendations in the report provide a guide for our agency.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wisconsin Public Radio, \u00a9 Copyright 2025, Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System and Wisconsin Educational Communications Board.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If you or someone you know is considering suicide, call or text the three-digit suicide and crisis lifeline…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":299598,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[97,9264,259,260,3,2825],"class_list":{"0":"post-299597","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-justice","10":"tag-mental-health","11":"tag-mentalhealth","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-prisons"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299597","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=299597"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299597\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/299598"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=299597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=299597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=299597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}