ALLOUEZ, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) — Prison isn’t supposed to be easy, but inmates and their family members say conditions at Green Bay Correctional Institution have been inhumane the last three months.
“If I didn’t have God and my family, I would lose my mind in here,” said Edward Austin, who is in the middle of a five-year sentence for violent crimes and burglary.
The state confirms restrictions have been in place at the 125-year-old prison since mid-June due to inmate assaults.
“If the disruptive behavior didn’t happen at all, I don’t know if we’d be there,” said Department of Corrections Secretary Kevin Carr of the current restrictions.
The situation is happening as the prison is more than 100 inmates over capacity on average and only 60 percent staffed.
“I understand prison is prison, but I’ve been to prison in Illinois, they say that is the worst prison of all. Green Bay is the worst,” said Austin.
Austin says he hasn’t been outside this year, has recently been lucky to receive the state-mandated two showers per week and has extreme difficulty getting mental health treatment.
“To get their attention, you have to yell out your cell that you’re going to kill yourself so you can get their attention,” said Austin. “It’s not a place for a human. I wouldn’t even put my dog in this place.”
Austin’s complaints are nearly identical to ones another inmate’s mother shared with us. She asked us to hide her identity out of fear of retaliation against her son, who’s serving a life sentence for murder.
“My son has not seen sunlight all year,” said the mother. “He’s had 55 minutes of rec all year. Not just all week, but all year. I know they’re not in the Hilton. They’re in prison, but if this was an animal shelter, it would be shut down already. This is inhumane treatment.”
Letters from other inmates and family of inmates outline the same criticisms.
Inmate Antonio Sheppard, who is in the middle of a 7-year sentence for armed robbery and kidnapping, writes “there is no rehabilitation here, it’s nothing but chaos.”
He ends a three-page letter saying his life, health and safety is at risk.
A spokesperson for the Green Bay Correctional Institution declined an interview, but offered some written statements. He places blame with the inmates.
“GBCI has been under modified movement since June 19 and was placed on that status due to multiple incidents of assaultive behavior toward staff and other persons in our care,” wrote Kevin Hoffman, Deputy Director of Communications for the DOC.
“We are not in lockdown,” DOC Secretary Carr told a legislative committee on Wednesday. “We are in a state of modified movement, which means everything that would normally be happening to a certain degree, not all things, but most things that are important, continue to happen, but they just happen at a slower pace.”
“That is colorful department talk for lockdown,” said State Rep. David Steffen, R-Howard.
Steffen has been pushing for the prison to be shut down for more than a decade. He says the age of the facility plays into the position the prison is currently in.
“We are operating with decaying, crumbling facilities that people don’t want to work in and that is causing negative, long-term impacts on the staff and inmates who are there,” said Steffen.
The DOC says the prison reviews the modified movement status each week and “has been incrementally increasing the number of persons who participate these activities.” The activities include recreation, law library, kitchen, and GED testing.
“Modified movement was put in place on June 19, so I don’t understand how anyone is saying they haven’t been out all year unless there are circumstances unrelated to the modified movement,” said Hoffman.
Edward Austin admits he has received conduct reports. The mother of the inmate who doesn’t want to be identified says the same thing. However, both separately explained conduct reports for similar actions.
“We wash our clothes with our hands, so ain’t no where to hang it up, so we hang strings and stuff on our door to dry our clothes and they say we can’t do that no more,” explained Austin about one of his conduct reports.
“It’s all hanging on their beds, dripping on their beds, so naturally they don’t want to hang them over their beds, so they put them in other areas and they get written up for that because it’s not where the prison says is the appropriate spot to hang them,” said the mother.
Multiple people also said inmates receive write ups for using clothes or sheets to block an opening at the bottom of their cell doors, and also for hanging garbage from the cell doors. The inmates say they do both to keep mice out.
The Department of Corrections had said it addressed the issue, but inmates and family members say the problem persists.
“We have two contracts with pest control folks that go into Green Bay weekly to monitor that situation and deal with that situation,” said Carr, who also claims inmates told him they no longer see the mice like they did previously.
While inmates say they are being written up for things like trying to keep mice out of their cells, they also say those infractions are keeping them from outdoor time, getting prison jobs, or educational opportunities.
More serious infractions result in trips to a restrictive housing unit. Multiple people say inmates are purposely taking that route because it comes with outdoor recreation time.
“Why wouldn’t you misbehave? Why wouldn’t you cause trouble? Why wouldn’t you attack another inmate if the reward is going to the hole and having rec?” said the mother who does not want to be identified.
“People do crimes in here just to get out of this joint to go to a different max because that is how bad it is here,” said Austin.
Multiple inmates and family members believe the current treatment and conditions can be attributed to staffing shortages.
Spokesman Kevin Hoffman says, “The current restrictions are not the result of staffing issues, but we are facing high vacancy rates at many DOC facilities.”
However, DOC Secretary Carr told legislators the shortage, combined with inmate behavior, is why restrictions are in place.
“When you have high vacancy rates and then you have disruptive behavior that occurs in conjunction with these high vacancy rates, you really have to slow things down,” said Carr.
An online dashboard shows 95 of GBCI’s 232 full time equivalent positions are vacant – 40.9 percent.
Meanwhile, the most recent annual report shows GBCI has an average of 913 inmates, which is 164 over the operating capacity.
“They’re supposed to have education in there,” said the mother of an inmate. “They’re supposed to have counseling in there. There’s mental health crisis going on all the time.
“Prison is not supposed to be easy, I understand that, but I’ve never seen it before until I came to Green Bay,” said Austin. “This is the worst.”
In the state budget passed this summer, starting pay for correctional officers was raised by nearly $13 an hour from $20.29 to $33 per hour.
Meanwhile, efforts to try to shut the prison down from local elected officials at the municipal and state levels continue.
Carr says discussions are happening with Governor Tony Evers on the prison’s future, but the preferred method to closing it down is reducing prison population without building a new facility.
