Judge denies GOP lawmakers’ Lincoln Hills request

(The Center Square) – The court order that restricts what guards can do at Wisconsin’s youth prison for young men is not going to change.

A federal judge denied a request from Republican lawmakers to modify the consent decree that governs the Lincoln Hills facility.

“The way to call for change is to file a motion with the court, where all the parties will have a chance to weigh in with evidence,” U.S. District Court Judge James Peterson wrote in a letter to both lawmakers and Gov. Tony Evers.

Republicans on the state’s committees for prisons asked Peterson to revisit the consent decree and give guards more freedom to confine young inmates who seriously misbehave and to be able to better protect themselves.

The governor asked the judge to maintain the decree, saying Lincoln Hills is in much better shape now than when the decree was signed back in 2018.

Lincoln Hills jumped back into the news in June, when an inmate there attacked and killed a youth counselor at the facility.

Sen. Van Wanggaard, R-Racine, said earlier this month that the state's Department of Corrections has “lost control” of Lincoln Hills.

“The consent decree seems to be a theoretical exercise that doesn’t translate to the real world,” Wanggaard said . “Staff assaults have increased, despite a decreasing population and the implementation of ‘evidence-based’ policies. Nearly everyone said OC (pepper) spray may or may not be the answer, but staff said in some instances, it doesn’t have any other options available either.”

Wanggaard is one of the dozen or so Republicans to write to Peterson.

Peterson responded that the consent decree at Lincoln Hills was written with the expectation that Wisconsin would close the prison. And he noted that hasn't happened.

“The true cost of Lincoln Hills – in damage inflicted on the youths housed there, in settlements paid out to the victims of constitutional violations, in risk and injury to the staff – is enormous and hasn’t yet been fully paid,” Peterson wrote in his letter.

Peterson invited both lawmakers and the governor to officially file a motion to intervene in the case, but it's unclear if lawmakers or the governor will take the judge up on the offer.