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January 09, 2009
WI: Consultants say thousands more cages and prison upgrades needed
Consultants say prison system needs $1.2 billion upgrade
By Steven Walters of the Journal Sentinel
Posted: Jan. 8, 2009
Madison - Consultants recommended Thursday that the state spend more than $1.2 billion over the next decade to expand and update its prison system.
The consultants said 8,920 new prison beds and 2,681 replacement beds for juveniles and adults will be needed to replace aging facilities and ease overcrowding.
State Corrections Secretary Rick Raemisch said the report from the Mead & Hunt firm will be used to help develop the agency's future goals and options, but said state government cannot afford everything recommended by the consultants.
"Given the massive (budget) deficit Wisconsin is facing, the plan provides a blueprint of where we don't want to be in 10 years," Raemisch said in a statement.
"The plan reaffirms that unless something changes, the demand for prison space will continue to grow over the next decade, bringing with it a high price tag for new prison space," Raemisch said.
For example, it would cost about $160 million to build one new medium-security prison for 2,000 inmates - not including land or annual operating costs, officials said.
In their report, the consultants said several prisons - including Dodge, Kettle Moraine, Green Bay, Waupun, Fox Lake and Oakhill - are so old that they pose major daily maintenance, equipment and staff problems. And emergency barracks-like dormitory prisons built in the mid-1990s "have reached the end of their useful life," the consultants said.
One other problem, according to the report, is assigning two inmates to cells in Waupun and Green Bay prisons that were built for individual inmates - cells with up to 54 square feet of space each.
That practice "is far below current accepted correctional standards and this practice should be discontinued," the consultants said.
On Jan. 2, Wisconsin prisons held 22,624
Posted by lois at January 9, 2009 03:55 PM