Henry is a seventy-one-year-old prisoner at Stanley Correctional Institution, which as of November 27 had 344 cases of COVID-19, according to the latest figures published by the Wisconsin Department of Corrections. Henry, who asked that his full name not be published, learned that he had contracted COVID-19 following a test on October 30. But despite his positive test result, little changed.
The prison, in West Central Wisconsin, was supposedly still under a mask mandate, but Henry says that it has continued being flouted by guards, and a few reckless prisoners, without reprimand. More worrisome, there were no changes in Henry’s day-to-day incarceration. His entire unit remained on lockdown, under which prisoners were confined to their cells except to use the phone or shower every other day.
“Once you got it, like myself, you got it,” Henry says. “I had zero follow-up. No retest. No temperature check. When I tested positive, they told my cellmate he was positive—but he wasn’t even checked.”
It’s not surprising, then, that cases of COVID-19 at state prisons throughout Wisconsin have exploded, intensifying calls from incarcerated folks and their advocates for Governor Tony Evers to release inmates who might otherwise face death from the disease.
According to the Wisconsin State Journal, state prisons recently passed two troubling milestones. On November 16, the Wisconsin Department of Corrections (DOC) reported 808 new COVID-19 cases among incarcerated individuals—the highest single-day spike since the start of the pandemic. The next day, the DOC reported that the number of cases among prisoners had surpassed 7,000—again, a first since the beginning of the pandemic.
The latest figures from the DOC show that COVID-19 cases among incarcerated folks stood at 8,313 as of November 27—nearly triple the amount from just one month prior. To date, at least eleven state prisoners infected by COVID-19 have died.
The Progressive’s questions to the DOC about efforts to protect state prisoners from COVID-19 were redirected to Governor Evers’s office, which failed to respond to multiple requests for comment.
According to the DOC’s website, Evers has issued eight executive or emergency orders regarding COVID-19 at large. Of these orders, only four even mention the department.
Emergency Order #9 instructs the DOC to halt admissions to state prisons and juvenile facilities, #12 and #28 exempt DOC facilities and personnel from statewide stay-at-home orders, and #1 exempts inmates from the statewide mask mandate.
Sean Wilson, a campaign manager with the ACLU of Wisconsin, applauds Evers for halting the admission of new prisoners, but there’s more that the organization wants the governor to do.
Shortly after the onset of the pandemic in the United States, the ACLU called on Evers to release incarcerated persons who are at high risk of severe illness or death from COVID-19. The civil rights organization also filed a lawsuit seeking their release, but this was rejected by the conservative-dominated Wisconsin state Supreme Court in late April. Still, the ACLU continues calling on the governor to release inmates.
“The governor should release the most vulnerable since they are at the greatest risk,” Wilson tells The Progressive. “He should also use his power to commute the sentences of people who are within six months to a year of being released. I mean, they aren’t just being released willy nilly. Most folks start their pre-release planning a year out. Also, they will be on probation and still under the supervision of the DOC.”
Other advocates echo the ACLU’s concerns. WISDOM, a coalition of religious organizations across Wisconsin seeking to advance social justice issues, including the end of mass incarceration, in mid-March issued an open letter to Evers and launched a petition demanding he grant compassionate release to elderly and ill inmates, release those held on low-level offenses, and otherwise reduce the prison population. For more than a month, members of WISDOM and others have also been holding a daily protest vigil outside of the governor's home in Madison.
“The biggest thing [Evers] can do is to use his power to commute sentences to get some people out of prisons now,” says WISDOM Director David Liners in an interview. “This could include elderly and seriously ill people—the vast majority of whom pose no threat to public safety, and most of whom have family or friends willing to receive them.”
Liners urges Evers to commute the sentences of low-risk offenders, like those incarcerated for “crimeless revocation,” or simply violating the rules of their probation, rather than committing a crime. Additionally, he says the governor could expedite parole proceedings for nearly 3,000 inmates who have already been incarcerated for more than two decades.
The Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee of Milwaukee, the local branch of an international labor union for inmates, has similarly been calling for the release of inmates in Wisconsin. Ron Schroeder, an organizer with IWOC Milwaukee, argues that such an approach would not only free the most vulnerable incarcerated folks from the risks of COVID-19, but if done at scale, it could reduce overcrowding and actually allow for social distancing.
That said, Schroeder acknowledges that releases would have to win the support of both Evers and DOC secretary Kevin Carr, who seems content with the failing strategy of providing inmates with personal protective equipment and sanitary supplies.
“Secretary Carr states his department provides PPE and cleaning supplies to persons in their care,” Schroeder says. “However, there’s one thing the DOC is incapable of doing: providing social distancing. That’s the very nature of prison environments today due to overcrowding.”
Incarcerated people and their advocates acknowledge that Evers, a Democrat, faces opposition from Wisconsin’s state legislature, both chambers of which are controlled by Republicans. But they say the governor can make good on this issue of criminal justice reform—a plank of his election campaign—through executive orders, sentence commutation, and other tools of his executive authority.
“The governor should be bold and unrelenting,” Wilson says. “He is up against a legislature that is opposed to anything and everything that he puts forth, so this should embolden him to exercise his executive authority.”
The stakes, as Wilson points out, are literally life or death.