Razor wire tops one of the fences at the Lincoln Hills School for Boys and Copper Lake School for Girls complex in rural Irma, Wisconsin. A law enacted in 2017 mandated the closure of the juvenile prison and the building of new ones. Photo taken in 2013. (Dan Young / USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin)
By Devin Blake
This story was originally published by Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service, where you can find other stories reporting on fifteen city neighborhoods in Milwaukee. Visit milwaukeenns.org.
The construction of a new juvenile prison in Milwaukee is moving forward. However, the prison will house only boys, with no corresponding facility for girls being planned in the city.
This means that Milwaukee-area girls who require a Type 1 correctional facility – the most secure type – will not be incarcerated in Milwaukee and will miss out on the benefits of being closer to home that boys will enjoy.
Prison reform advocates have long argued that the overall relationship between girls and the correctional system is not a good one.
The system is “not well-designed to meet their needs,” said Melissa Ludin, coalition and relations advocate at the American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin.
Juvenile justice reforms
When Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers announced the site selection for the new boys prison in Milwaukee, he said that “the goal for me and my administration since Day One has been to close Lincoln Hills and Copper Lake and to get our kids closer to home as soon as we safely and responsibly could.”
Evers added that this closeness to home keeps kids connected to their families and helps set them up for success after release.
This is consistent with research.
A paper published by the National Institutes of Health, for example, concluded that families are vital to supporting reentry efforts because they provide not only emotional support but also material support, such as housing and financial help.
What do girls get?
The Wisconsin Department of Corrections considers the forthcoming expansion of Mendota Juvenile Treatment Center in Madison as a major step toward reforming the juvenile justice system to accommodate girls.
Mendota is a Type 1 facility for youths whose behavioral or mental health needs cannot be met by the facilities available within the Department of Corrections, according to the Wisconsin Department of Health Services, which oversees Mendota.
Mendota has only admitted boys so far, but the law – 2017 Wisconsin Act 185 – calling for the closure of Lincoln Hills and Copper Lake and the building of new juvenile prisons, also calls for funding to expand Mendota to accommodate girls.
The Department of Health Services expects the expansion to be fully operational in early 2025 and for the completed facility to house 73 boys and 20 girls.
But Mendota is in Madison, not Milwaukee.
And although Mendota would increase the state’s overall ability to accommodate girls who are incarcerated, the Department of Corrections must still have its own Type 1 beds for girls, Beth Hardtke, director of communications for the correctional department, said in an email.
Other options
Act 185 requires that the Department of Corrections pursue two new Type 1 juvenile prisons.
These prisons are part of what the department calls a “regionalized” model of youth incarceration, with the major aim of keeping youths closer to their homes.
Current plans call for a prison in Dane County to house 32 boys and eight girls, Hardtke said.
Another prison is being pursued in an undetermined location in the northeastern region of the state.
However, these prisons would not keep Milwaukee-area girls in Milwaukee, meaning that girls either in custody of the Department of Corrections or at Mendota would not be as close to home as boys in the Milwaukee prison will be.
It is important to “note that the geographical background of youth at Copper Lake compared to Lincoln Hills is quite different,” Britt Cudaback, communications director for Evers’ office, told NNS in an email.
“Unlike the boy population at Lincoln Hills, there are few girls that come from Milwaukee County to Copper Lake,” Cudaback wrote.
“For example, the girl population at Copper Lake School has been consistently low, often in the single digits,” she said.
As of July 19, there were no girls from Milwaukee at Copper Lake, Hardtke said.
Devin Blake is the criminal justice reporter for the Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service. His position is funded by the Public Welfare Foundation, which plays no role in editorial decisions in the NNS newsroom.