Lawmakers, Evers take step toward closing youth prison
Counties get funding to build new teen facilities
MADISON - Gov. Tony Evers and state lawmakers took one of the last steps toward replacing the state’s youth prison Thursday by releasing to counties millions of dollars to build local facilities for young offenders.
Four counties will be able to use a total of $102.6 million in bonding to build the facilities that are planned to be part of a new statewide juvenile system that lawmakers want to take the place of a single juvenile prison north of Wausau.
“These facilities will enable youth to receive trauma-informed, evidencebased resources, while bringing the youth at Lincoln Hills and Copper Lake Schools closer to home,” Evers said in a statement.
The Lincoln Hills School for Boys and Copper Lake School for Girls, a secure campus for the state’s most-serious juvenile offenders, has endured years of scrutiny by state officials as inmates and staff there have repeatedly been injured, neglected or nearly killed.
Lawmakers in 2018 voted to close the facility after a number of lawsuits, including one overseen by a federal judge who blasted corrections officials for keeping the young inmates at Lincoln Hills in a more isolated environment than the Unabomber.
But since then, Republican lawmakers who control the Legislature have abandoned the key to ensuring the facility is closed by refusing to fund two new state-run facilities that house the most-serious juvenile offenders — at an estimated total price tag of $73 million.
Instead, the Legislature’s finance committee earlier this month voted to funnel money only to the county facilities, which are intended to house juveniles who committed less serious offenses.
Evers and lawmakers on the state’s building commission released that funding to the counties in a unanimous vote Thursday.
Brown and Racine counties will receive the most money at about $40 million each. Dane County will receive $6.5 million, the amount officials there requested.
Milwaukee County, where most offenders are from, requested $23.6 million, but the GOP-controlled finance committee released $15.2 million.
Republicans on the finance committee backed giving three counties all the money they sought to build new facilities but shorted Milwaukee County $8.4 million because of the county’s changing plans, they said.
That prevents the county from leasing space meant to house teen girls who commit crimes.