Lincoln Hills report shows improved climate at youth prison
MADISON - The state’s youth prison is feeling safer, but more than half its workers still say they have fears as plans to close the long-troubled facility remain stalled.
Fifty-one percent of staff at the Lincoln Hills School for Boys and Copper Lake School for Girls said in April they fear for their safety, but those concerns are considerably smaller than five months ago when nearly 80% of staff said they believed they were in danger.
But overall, conditions in the prison continue to improve, according to a new report filed in federal court Thursday in a class-action lawsuit that forced the state Department of Corrections to overhaul how it cares for teenage offenders.
“The overall atmosphere today has vastly improved from a year ago,” Teresa Abreu, a court-ordered monitor assigned to review the prison’s compliance with dozens of changes a federal judge ordered in 2017.
At that time, prison staff were using pepper spray routinely on teenagers in their care — in one case nearly 20 times on one inmate.
Offenders were being held in solitary confinement for so long that the federal judge said “Ted Kaczynski has less restrictive confinement than the youth at Lincoln Hills,” referring to the Unabomber who is held at a federal supermax prison in Colorado.
But Abreu’s latest report showed no pepper spray use at all during the period in April she visited, and data showed teen inmates were in their rooms against their will less than 10% of the time.
While teen inmates are reporting feeling bored rather than unsafe, according to climate survey results in the report, staff still say they need more training and the facility’s school remains understaffed.
The reported improving conditions at the prison north of Wausau come at a time when plans to close the prison and open smaller facilities around the state, closer to inmates’ homes, aren’t moving forward as imagined.
Lawmakers in 2018 voted to close the facility, 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 price tag of $73 million.
They did, however, release 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.
Abreu visited the youth prison after much of the state shut down to curb the spread of the coronavirus. She noted that much of the education offerings were being provided virtually.
One pandemic-related change that prison staff say will likely become permanent is the introduction of video calls with family.
The teen inmates, who are in many cases hours away from their family, said the calls improve their mood.
“Seeing mom. They make happy and better days,” one inmate said. Another said the best part was to “see my baby brother tell me his age.”
Proximity to family is a major deficiency in the current location of the youth prison, juvenile justice experts say, and a key factor in the design of the new statewide system lawmakers hope to create.
The female inmates at the facility also are creating hundreds of face masks for staff and peers with elderly visitors known as the prison’s “foster grandparents,” according to the report.
“This started out as a kind gesture to provide a few masks with a group of youth that did not have previous experience with sewing,” Abreu wrote. “They have also taught our youth an amazing skill and the opportunity to give back to the facility and community.”
The program should be expanded to male inmates, too, Abreu wrote.
“(Mask-making) started out as a kind gesture to provide a few masks with a group of youth that did not have previous experience with sewing. They have also taught our youth an amazing skill and the opportunity to give back to the facility and community.” Teresa Abreu Court-ordered monitor