MADISON – Gov. Tony Evers is proposing in his next two-year state budget a half of a billion dollar plan that would close a deteriorating 127-year-old state prison in Green Bay, rebuild another aging correctional facility and overhaul a constellation of others within six years.
But the sweeping plan hinges on the closure of the state’s long-troubled youth prison in Irma — a promise state lawmakers first made in 2018 and have yet to keep.
Evers will propose roughly $500 million in his 2025-27 state budget to finance a series of changes to the state’s system of corrections that would close the maximum security prison in Green Bay by 2029 and spend $245 million to rebuild living quarters of a state prison in Waupun — both facilities built in the 1800s.
In a press briefing at the state Capitol on Friday, Evers stressed the goals could not be met unless the Lincoln Hills School for Boys and Copper Lake School for Girls stop accepting teen offenders within four years.
Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers outlines a plan to overhaul the state’s system of prisons in a press conference at the state Capitol on Friday, Feb. 14, 2025. Corrections Secretary Jared Hoy looks on as Evers speaks to reporters.
“I was amazed at how well people came together on this issue of taking care of our kids,” Evers said about the initial push in 2018 to close the youth prison after years of abuse of inmates and staff. “We never got that done and because we haven’t done that, the other things can’t happen. And so I think we can re-create that goodwill.”
More: Lincoln Hills staffer dies after assault by 16-year-old boy at youth prison
Evers said the portions of the plan that would close the Green Bay-area prison, which local officials and some Republican lawmakers have sought for years, may push the GOP-controlled state Legislature to move forward on the plan to close the teen prison.
Republican lawmakers have over the years delayed funding various portions of the plan to replace the teen prison with regional facilities and recently have questioned the Evers administration’s policies related to how staff at the prison can manage behavior among the teens who are incarcerated there.
DOC employees are bound by policies prescribed by a federal order as a result of a lawsuit filed over the conditions at the Lincoln Hills campus.
The plan also would require spending:
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$9 million to convert the Lincoln Hills teen prison into a medium security facility.
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$8.8 million to convert the medium-security prison in Stanley to house maximum security inmates.
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$56.3 million to remodel and expand the Sanger B. Powers prison in Hobart for minimum security inmates.
There have been calls for years to close the Green Bay Correctional Institution, due to conditions described as inhumane by people who are incarcerated there.
Those incarcerated there have reported infestations of mice and a lack of access to natural daylight and showers. Prison guards have struggled to stay safe in the facility due to its outdated design.
Lawmakers and advocates alike have been calling for the closure of the space for years, with the potential to build a new, state of the art facility nearby. But the cost of building such a facility has been an issue.
Evers said in 2023 that any plan to close the aging prison would have to be “comprehensive and considered holistically based on the needs of Wisconsin’s adult corrections program.”
The Republican-controlled Legislature and the Democratic governor have often sparred on the issue, with Republicans saying Evers hasn’t done enough to make the conditions for those in prisons better. But Republicans also have pushed back on legislation that would incarcerate fewer people in order to reduce the prison population overall.
Waupun Correctional Institution has also faced a series of deaths among those incarcerated there in recent years and is now under investigation by federal officials over how drugs and contraband were smuggled inside.
The warden and eight other staff members were fired last year in connection with the deaths of incarcerated individuals in the facility. They were also charged and arrested with crimes, from failing to do their duty to causing the conditions that led to the deaths of the men.
Evers said it is less costly to close the Green Bay-area prison than to replace it and cited local support for its closure as a factor in choosing whether to close the Waupun facility or the Green Bay-area prison.
Remodeling the Waupun Correctional Institution would create what Evers administration officials are calling a “vocational village,” with a focus on expanding job training.
The employees currently working at the Green Bay Correctional Institution would be guaranteed jobs at other facilities, Evers officials said Friday.
In 2018, a study conducted by St. Norbert College showed replacing the prison in Allouez with commercial and residential buildings could create more than 1,000 jobs and add at least $1 million in annual property tax collections locally.
Laura Schulte of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel contributed to this report.
Molly Beck can be reached at molly.beck@jrn.com.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Tony Evers to seek prison overhaul, closing of Green Bay Correctional
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