State disbands unit that found abuses
Internal affairs agents uncovered widespread problems at Lincoln Hills
MADISON - Gov. Scott Walker’s administration is getting rid of the internal affairs unit that exposed abuses at the state’s juvenile prison complex and paved the way for a yearslong criminal investigation of the facility.
The Department of Corrections’ unit will be eliminated on June 25, and its investigators will be folded into a bureau focused on reducing sexual assaults behind bars. The change means the state’s prison system will no longer have a dedicated office for investigating employee misconduct.
“I don’t understand the wisdom behind the change,” said Rep. Evan Goyke (D-Milwaukee). “Why would we return to a setup that could allow future abuse? If
it’s shown value, why would we end it?”
Department of Corrections officials said closing the internal affairs division will allow the state agency to concentrate on sexual assaults while still maintaining its ability to thoroughly investigate employee misconduct.
“This reorganization will augment our ability to meet and exceed federal (Prison Rape Elimination Act) standards, retain our capacity to maintain preparedness and respond to major incidents, and strengthen our ability to conduct PREA investigations,” the department said in a message to employees.
The decision to shut down the internal affairs unit is not related to the probe that revealed widespread problems at Lincoln Hills School for Boys and Copper Lake School for Girls, said department spokesman Tristan Cook. The prisons share a campus 30 miles north of Wausau.
The internal affairs agency is being eliminated as litigation heats up over Lincoln Hills. This month, a former inmate filed a federal lawsuit alleging excessive use of solitary confinement and pepper spray. It is the third lawsuit filed over the prison complex this year.
Cook and other department officials have said the problems at Lincoln Hills are in the past.
Since last year, they have put new leaders in charge of the institution, given workers extensive training and equipped the facility with more cameras.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has spelled out problems at Lincoln Hills in a series of stories over the last 11⁄2 years, including one in which a guard in 2015 allegedly pushed a 15-year-old girl against a wall with his hand on her neck.
That article and many others were based on thousands of pages of interview transcripts and reports generated by the internal affairs unit, known as the Office of Special Operations.
Martin Horn, a lecturer in corrections at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, said it is much easier for states to make sure internal investigations are conducted in a professional and independent way when they are done by centralized internal investigation teams like the Office of Special Operations.
It’s harder to make sure staff running investigations have expertise if they have numerous other duties, he said.
“It’s like getting a pickup team every time, and you don’t want to send a pickup team every time,” Horn said.
“Using a pickup team means you don’t have the expertise, you don’t have the ability to do consistent training and you don’t have absolute loyalty to the secretary, rather than the chain of command.”
Department officials said the new system for conducting internal investigations will be similar to the one that was in place before 2013, when the Office of Special Operations was created. Cook noted many of the investigations at Lincoln Hills were conducted by staff other than those at the Office of Special Operations.
The office began its investigation of Lincoln Hills in October 2014 after receiving numerous complaints, including that guards had broken juveniles’ arms and ignored their medical needs.
Since the internal probe began, eight Lincoln Hills workers have been fired and 14 have resigned while being investigated.
Soon after internal investigators launched their probe, they alerted state Attorney General Brad Schimel that crimes appeared to have been committed. Schimel started his own investigation, which he handed off to the FBI last year.
Details of the criminal investigations have been scant, so most of what is known publicly about Lincoln Hills comes from the work of the Office of Special Operations.
Acting U.S. Attorney Jeff Anderson declined to comment for this story because the investigation is ongoing. Schimel said he had not been briefed recently on the investigation but does not believe abuse is continuing there.
“I frankly don’t know the status of the federal investigation,” he told reporters. “All of the staff who have been alleged to have been involved in any kind of abuse or neglect have been removed from that institution, so under those circumstances, we believe it is safe there now.”
Those employees are gone in most cases because of the work of the Office of Special Operations.
The office revealed that Lincoln Hills’ top trainer for years had taught guards to use abusive techniques when securing juvenile inmates, overlooked inappropriate activities and falsified records.
It also found the facility’s security director had failed to properly oversee sexual assault investigations.
Trainer Dusty Meunier quit during the investigation of him, and Security Director Rick Peterson was demoted as a result of the investigation of him.
Since completing their work at Lincoln Hills, internal investigators have primarily been working on sexual assault issues at prisons around the state. Next month, those three internal investigators will be folded into an office that works solely on that issue.
With the Office of Special Operations closed down, employee misconduct investigations will be run by prison security directors, captains, lieutenants and others.
“DOC conducts staff investigations as they are warranted — we devote the necessary time and resources to all staff investigations, regardless of who within DOC is responsible for the investigation,” Cook said by email.
New lawsuit filed
This month, a 17-yearold former inmate from Outagamie County sued prison officials in federal court in Madison alleging they violated his civil rights.
The plaintiff, who filed the lawsuit under his initials R.E., alleged guards pepper sprayed him and body slammed him to the ground after another inmate started a fight with him.
He was not immediately given a shower and was placed alone in a cell that reeked of urine and feces for at least four days, according to the lawsuit.
He often was not allowed to leave his cell for the bathroom and had to urinate and defecate on the floor of his cell, he contends.
He was placed in solitary confinement at least three other times since he began his stay at Lincoln Hills at age 15 in 2015, the lawsuit says.
The lawsuit follows two others brought by the American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin on behalf of all current inmates and a former inmate who was severely brain damaged after hanging herself in her cell.