Teen pepper sprayed 12 times

100 uses reported in 6 months at prison

MADISON - A teen inmate was hit with pepper spray 12 times in six months, according to a state Department of Corrections report that shows chemical agents were used on juveniles more than 100 times in the first half of the year.

The department filed the report in response to a federal court order requiring the state to drastically reduce the use of pepper spray, solitary confinement and handcuffs and other restraints at Lincoln Hills School for Boys and Copper Lake School for Girls. U.S. District Judge James Peterson also required the state to analyze its past pepper spray practices to help it find ways to reduce its use.

Lincoln Hills and Copper Lake share a campus 30 miles north of Wausau. Teen inmates represented by the American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin sued over their treatment and the judge in June found their civil rights were likely being violated.

Prison officials also are being sued by at least four former inmates and a criminal investigation of the institution has been ongoing for 21⁄2 years.

The new report found pepper spray was used 103 times from January to June — 98 times at Lincoln Hills and five times at Copper Lake, which holds far fewer inmates.

One inmate was sprayed 12 times, one was sprayed nine

times and a third was sprayed five times, according to the report. In addition, three were sprayed four times and five were sprayed three times.

Thirty inmates were sprayed once and 10 were sprayed twice during the six months, the report showed.

In all, 51 inmates — 15% of the inmates who stayed at the prison complex in the first half of the year — were sprayed with pepper spray at least once.

Pepper spray was used most often — 28 times — because the teen inmates were physically resisting staff, the report found. It was used another 20 times because

inmates were refusing orders to stop damaging their cell doors, furniture or other prison property.

It was used 16 times because inmates were resisting efforts to move them between cells or to another facility. In other cases, pepper spray was deployed because inmates were refusing to take their hands out of the food slot in their cell doors, fighting other inmates, acting aggressively or threatening to harm themselves or others.

Eighty percent of the time, pepper spray was used in the solitary confinement units at the prison complex. The rest of the time, pepper spray — technically known as oleoresin capsicum, or OC — was used in the general population areas of the prison.

“The high percentage of OC incidents in restrictive housing suggests that reductions in use of restrictive housing may also reduce use of OC at least once the initial disruption of the changes has passed,” Sam Hall, an attorney hired by the Department of Corrections, wrote in the report to the court.

The prison is taking steps to reduce the occurrence of incidents that lead to pepper spray, Hall wrote. That includes training workers on how to de-escalate situations; giving inmates more structured activities; developing a behavior therapy program; offering incentives to inmates for good behavior; and creating a housing unit for those who require the most intervention.

The report was filed Thursday, the same day Department of Corrections

officials announced Lincoln Hills Superintendent Wendy Peterson would step down next week to become education director of the prison complex. Wendy Peterson, who is not related to Judge James Peterson, previously held the job as education director and will see her pay cut by about $15,000.

The filing also came days after attorneys for inmates raised questions about whether Lincoln Hills was fully complying with the judge’s order. Their filing claimed an inmate recently had been kept in solitary confinement for more than seven days — longer than allowed under the judge’s order — and had been sprayed with pepper spray because he had refused to remove his hands from the food slot in his cell door.