Lockdowns Plague Wisconsin’s Overcrowded Columbia Correctional Institution – Shepherd Express

On Oct. 22: A sergeant called a black man “boy.” The man responded by attacking the officer, leaving him “severely beaten.” The facility went on lockdown until Oct 25.

On Oct. 29: Four days after coming off lockdown, another guard provoked another black man by calling him the n-word. He was also assaulted, but less severely. The facility went on lockdown again until Nov 5.

On Nov. 8: A guard was stabbed during program services. The facility has been on lockdown, which means that all of the people inside are deprived of their basic rights and fundamentals of human dignity, from Nov. 8 to the date of this writing (Dec. 8). This is obviously a form of “collective punishment.”

On Nov. 19, Makda Fessahaye, the head of the DOC’s Division of Adult Institutions (DAI), spoke on a panel at Marquette University. After the panel, she told me she was investigating these incidents but had been told that all three staff members “were blindsided.”

However, prisoner advocates insist “nobody is just randomly assaulting staff” and argue that, given Wisconsin DOC’s history of taking abusive guards’ words at face value, however unbelievable, they are demanding thorough investigations. Forum For Understanding Prisons (FFUP), an inmate advocacy organization, has also filed open records requests for shift logs and any “inmate complaints” filed over the last month in an effort to contact the people most directly involved.

Source: Lockdowns Plague Wisconsin’s Overcrowded Columbia Correctional Institution – Shepherd Express

 

This is an exceptional article, with a number of very informative links within it.  I know that it isn’t registry related, but it is a concern for anyone with someone incarcerated in Wisconsin.  This is some serious stuff they describe here and as we all know, if it is happening here and it is happening in our youth facility it is happening in EVERY SINGLE DOC INSTITUTION IN WISCONSIN.

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