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| Monitor says conditions improving at Wisc. prison |
| By Associated Press |
| Published: 05/16/2005 |
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The Wisconsin Department of Corrections is improving conditions at the state's most secure prison, and is meeting or exceeding the terms of a legal settlement with inmates, a federal monitor appointed to oversee compliance with the agreement says. But Walter Dickey said "serious flaws" remain in the way the institution formerly known as the Supermax prison tries to regulate inmate behavior, and he urged converting part of the facility into a standard maximum-security prison. Inmates filed a lawsuit in 2000 over living conditions at the prison and reached the settlement with state officials two years later that required a series of changes. Dickey, a University of Wisconsin law professor, commented last week at a meeting of the Task Force on Money, Education and Prisons at Edgewood College, providing a preview of a report he is scheduled to present to U.S. District Judge Barbara Crabb next month. "An awful lot of progress has been made toward the implementation of the agreement," Dickey said. He cited new cages on the grounds of the prison in Boscobel now known as the Secure Program Facility to allow limited outdoor recreation, adequate temperature controls to ensure cells are neither too hot nor too cold. Dickey also said light bulbs provide enough illumination at night for officers to see into cells but are dim enough to let inmates sleep. Compliance in other areas is pretty good, he said, including a proposed compromise allowing inmates to keep prayer rugs that were slightly bigger than regulations allowed. Corrections officers also have largely stopped withholding food as punishment, he said. But Dickey faulted the prison for trying to control inmates through a "level" system. Under the system, inmates who commit serious infractions lose all their privileges, including the items they can keep in their cells, getting them back only as they move up through a series of five behavior levels. Many inmates never move out of the bottom levels, and others will never be let out because they are too dangerous, he said. He recommended keeping the system for the 100 or so inmates he said are motivated to move out of the prison but acknowledging many others will never graduate. They should be allowed to keep their things but know they will never be released, he said. "There's no sense in kidding ourselves," he said. Dickey said the state would be better served by converting the rest of the 500-bed facility to a standard prison with the addition of a school and a workhouse. |
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