Why Evers’ Prison Overhaul Plan Died

Green Bay Correctional Institution. Photo from the Department of Corrections.

In February, Gov. Tony Evers recommended a $325-million, interconnected “domino” plan to close the Green Bay prison, turn the Waupun prison into a medium-security job training center, and upgrade and restructure other institutions statewide.

“Wisconsin is decades behind in how we think about corrections,” Evers said then.

“This antiquated system will only continue to cost Wisconsin taxpayers more…we can improve public safety by reducing recidivism, improve our facilities, implement evidence-based practices to expand access to treatment and workforce training, and still save taxpayers dollars.”

But the “domino” plan got no Capitol support in the Republican-crafted state budget that Evers signed on July 3. One objection was a Republican claim that it would endanger public safety by cutting the state’s prison population by about 700.

Seven months later, the prison-reform debate has been reduced to new calls for a 2029 closing of the outdated, dangerous Green Bay prison and $15 million set aside for future planning and design of construction projects “related to a Department of Corrections realignment.” That may or may not include the Green Bay facility.

Plus, the political landscape has changed in ways that make significant prison-reform debate unlikely before the Legislature’s 2027-2028 session. And maybe not even then.

The Democratic governor has announced that he won’t seek a third term, which means whoever is elected governor in November 2026 may have their own prison-reform plan.

So there is no incentive for Republican legislators this fall or next spring to negotiate a long-range prison reform package with a governor who will be out of office by January 2027 and an Evers appointee, Corrections Secretary Jared Hoy, who is likely to be replaced.

And, if Democrats take control of the Senate in the November 2026 elections, they will want to play a major role in shaping any future prison-reform package. Senate Democrats have been out of power since 2010.

In February, Evers recommended major changes for two maximum-security prisons built in the 1800s: Green Bay would close by 2029, and Waupun would be converted into a medium-security facility that emphasized job training. The Stanley prison would be converted from medium to maximum security, and several other facilities would be upgraded to handle shifting inmate populations.

The $325-million “domino” plan was a better option than building a new $1.2-billion prison that wouldn’t open for at least 10 years, the governor said.

Although Republican legislators inserted a requirement that Green Bay close by 2029 into the new state budget, a frustrated Evers vetoed that provision. Evers said that date was “unrealistic,” since legislators included no long-range plans on what to do with the prison’s 1,048 inmates.

“It’s not like we could close it tomorrow and say, ‘Okay, where are all these people gonna go?’ We have to have all that in place, simple as that,” Evers told a Green Bay reporter this summer.

Republican Rep. David Steffen, who has been working on options to closing the Green Bay prison for years, criticized the veto.

“The government likes to take twice as long and spend twice as much on seemingly everything down in Madison,” Steffen said. “Deadlines help with some of those things.”

First-term Democratic Rep. Ben Franklin, of De Pere, said he will soon introduce a bill requiring the Green Bay prison to close at the end of 2029. Whether the bill will get any attention is unclear, however.

“I still feel like there’s a necessity to have a decommissioning date codified into state law,” Franklin said. “It will be 31 December 2029 as a legal decommissioning date for Green Bay Correctional Institution with no authority to extend without explicit legislative authority.”

The Department of Corrections has a two-year budget of $3.9 billion, a 13% increase from the last biennial budget. It includes $130.7 million for a new Dane County juvenile institution, $26.6 million to upgrade the Prairie du Chien facility, $29.7 million for heating updates at facilities statewide, and $11 million in upgrades for the Milwaukee Secure Detention Facility.

First-term Democratic Sen. Jamie Wall, of Green Bay, whose father worked at the prison for 34 years, said the final budget deal didn’t include prison reforms.

“Everything that was outside of the topics negotiated between the governor and legislative leaders pretty much just got pencil-whipped out of the budget,” Wall said. “The prison system was one of them.”

Steven Walters started covering the Capitol in 1988, Contact him at stevenscowalter