State: Teen inmate unrest hinders change

Lincoln Hills, Copper Lake work toward compliance

MADISON - Gov. Scott Walker’s administration had difficulty complying with a federal judge’s order requiring sweeping changes at the state’s teen prison complex because of “significant unrest” that at times endangered staff, an attorney for the state said in a court filing this week.

The filing shows the challenges the Walker administration continues to face in managing Lincoln Hills School for Boys and Copper Lake School for Girls. The prisons share a campus north of Wausau in Lincoln County and are the subject of a criminal investigation into prisoner abuse and child neglect.

One sign of the difficulties: The use of pepper spray at the prison complex has risen since U.S. District Judge James Peterson issued an injunction requiring the state to curb the use of pepper spray, handcuffs and solitary confinement.

Pepper spray was deployed 27 times in July and 36 times in August — up from 10 times in June, according to court records.

The report was filed this week to update Peterson on how the state was doing at complying with his order after he found teen inmates’ constitutional rights were likely being violated. It was filed jointly by the state and the teen inmates who brought the lawsuit over the prisons, but the two sides differed sharply over whether the state was meeting the requirements of the judge’s order.

Benjamin Sparks, an attorney for the state, wrote that prison officials have made strides in complying with the court’s order, but have faced challenges because of disruptive behavior by inmates.

In one instance, an inmate threw a food cart at a booth for guards, breaking glass on a window. In another, inmates threw garbage cans at supervisors and one of them hurled a jug of apple juice as the supervisors approached them.

“These situations tend not to be as simple as (the) plaintiffs describe them,” Sparks wrote.

He added: “There was significant unrest among the youth at Lincoln Hills School and Copper Lake School when the initial injunction was entered, making immediate implementation difficult and, at times, dangerous for staff and non-disruptive youth.”

An attorney for the inmates contended the state was not in full compliance with the injunction, but had made “limited progress” toward reducing the use of handcuffs and solitary confinement.

He suggested the state had tried to get around part of the judge’s order by holding some inmates for extended periods in isolation by calling it something other than solitary confinement.

“A handful of youth have been held in the restrictive housing units for weeks at a time in ‘administrative confinement’ status, which is nominally non-punitive, but exposes these young people to the same intolerable conditions entailed in punitive solitary confinement,” wrote Larry Dupuis, the legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin.

Some have been rotated between administrative confinement and other types of isolation “for weeks and months on end,” he wrote.

Department of Corrections spokesman Tristan Cook said the state is in settlement talks with the inmates. The state has made “substantial progress” in reducing the use of pepper spray, handcuffs and solitary confinement “while maintaining a safe and secure environment,” he said by email.

Sharlen Moore and Jeffrey Roman, the co-founders of the advocacy group Youth Justice Milwaukee, said the report highlighted the need to close Lincoln Hills and Copper Lake.

“We’re amazed that the adults who are supposed to be in charge of rehabilitating young people can’t see the fact that they are acting out because they are being abused, not the other way around,” they said in a statement.

Those held in isolation receive no more than three hours out of their cells per day — less than the 30 hours per week required by the judge’s order, according to the inmates’ attorney.

They are usually fed in their cells and are not getting enough time out of their cells for school, Dupuis wrote. Visits from social workers are infrequent, and checks by mental health workers are usually done through locked doors instead of face-to-face, he wrote.

“There was significant unrest among the youth at Lincoln Hills School and Copper Lake School when the initial injunction was entered, making immediate implementation difficult and, at times, dangerous for staff and non-disruptive youth.” BENJAMIN SPARKS ATTORNEY FOR THE STATE