National group calls for closing Lincoln Hills

Coalition says juvenile prisons are ‘relics of past’

A national group launched its effort Thursday to overhaul the nation’s juvenile justice system by calling for the closure of a troubled prison for youths in northern Wisconsin and 79 other large or aging juvenile prisons around the country.

coalition of various nonprofits, Youth First! issued a report arguing that prisons such as Lincoln Hills School for Boys and its sister institution, Copper Lake School for Girls, are “relics of the past.”

These large institutions cost more than the alternatives, separate families, do little to rehabilitate inmates and expose them to potential risks from solitary confinement, pepper spray and sexual assault by staff or other inmates, the report found.

Lincoln Hills and Copper Lake, located 30 miles north of Wausau, are under investigation by federal and state authorities for alleged abuses there.

Liz Ryan, the president and chief executive officer of Youth First!, said the large prisons designed for adults are “toxic” for a youth who is still growing and developing.

The problems at Lincoln Hills represent a chance for change, she said.

“This is a wake-up call for Wisconsin and an opportunity to reform the system in a way that is much more effective,” Ryan said.

Wisconsin has one of the worst racial disparities in the country when the rates of imprisonment for white male youths and black male youths are compared, the report found.

While only 10% of the youths in Wisconsin are black, 58% of those incarcerated are African-American — a disparity that is also present for adult inmates in the state.

State Rep. Mandela Barnes (D Milwaukee) said the way juvenile offenders are handled by the state ends up perpetuating the same damaging cycle for the inmates, their communities and taxpayers.

“It’s a recipe for disaster,” he said.

A spokeswoman for the state Department of Corrections had no comment on the report.

The report also found that it can cost up to $106,000 a year to keep a youth in state prison in Wisconsin, or nearly 10 times as much as a year of schooling for the average student in the state.

There has been a trend, both in Wisconsin and nationally, for local sentencing for juvenile offenders because of the less expensive and more effective options.

This sea of change in juvenile corrections can come with challenges.

From the mid-1990s through 2000, the state’s multiple prisons for youth averaged at or near 1,000 inmates at any given time, according to state figures.

Today, Lincoln Hills and Copper Lake School serve as the state’s single main facility for youth offenders and hold just under 300 of them, or less than one-third of what several Wisconsin prisons once did.

Corrections experts said the decrease in inmates is a largely positive change that reflects lower arrest rates for youths and an ongoing trend of counties providing more local sentencing options.

Efforts such as Wraparound Milwaukee aim to provide youths and relatives with a broad range of services, from family counseling to tutoring and mental health and addiction treatment.

But as those efforts contribute to a decrease in the youths in state prisons, there’s been some gradual shift in the typical offenders who are still sent to those facilities.

That has included an increase in violent crimes, repeat offenses or chronic behavior.

Communities need to be ready to work with juveniles who may have “high need” because of disabilities or mental illness even if they aren’t necessarily “high-risk,” Ryan said.