Produced by the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism
WisconsinWatch.org (https://www.wisconsinwatch.org/series/waupun-allegations/)
Our recent reporting found prisoners experience despair, suicide attempts, mental harm and lack of services in solitary confinement that can stretch on for years.
— Peg Swan, inmate advocate
Prisoners recount suicide attempts, mental harm and lack of services in solitary confinement; former Waupun psychologist describes harsh treatment of inmates.
When he returned from a medical leave in early 2016, psychologist Bradley Boivin discovered a troubling pattern among Waupun Correctional Institution inmates who had been held in solitary confinement. Thirteen of his patients’ mental health classifications had been changed without Boivin’s knowledge — and in his opinion, without proper assessment.
LaRon McKinley, who spent 28 years in administrative confinement, says the state needs to return to rehabilitation and end long-term solitary confinement
A judge has rejected a request by a Wisconsin inmate hunger striker to discontinue force feeding as the protest against long-term solitary confinement continues.
The state Department of Corrections is force feeding at least three inmates as a hunger strike aimed at ending a form of solitary confinement that can go on for years — even decades — continues for a third week.
About half a dozen Wisconsin prison inmates have begun refusing food as part of a protest against long-term isolation known as administrative confinement, backers of the protest said Monday.
Colorado’s decision to curtail the use of solitary confinement — which the state of Wisconsin has begun to do — offers lessons for the Badger State that its former prisons chief, Rick Raemisch, is uniquely positioned to offer.
About a dozen Wisconsin prisoners plan to launch a hunger strike beginning next week aimed at ending a form of indefinite solitary confinement that officials use to keep order in the institutions, according to an inmate advocacy group.
Waupun Correctional inmates were not notified for months that Wisconsin had dramatically cut maximum stints in solitary confinement, leading some to agree to longer-than-maximum sentences.
Wisconsin has made a “culture shift” in its use of solitary confinement in prisons, eliminating it as punishment for minor rule infractions and cutting the time inmates spend in isolation for more serious offenses, Department of Corrections officials revealed in an interview granted as part of a legal settlement with the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism.
