Inmate advocates, lawmakers say Waupun charges highlight need for 'urgent' reforms (2024)

For Dennis Franklin, the arrests of the warden and eight staff members at Waupun Correctional Institution Wednesday following the deaths of four inmates over the last year has been “a long time coming.”

Inmates at Waupun have been in contact with Franklin regularly in his role as interim associate director of EX-incarcerated People Organizing, which advocates for the incarcerated and formerly incarcerated. Franklin said he heard troubling echoes of his own experiences being incarcerated.

“I can remember going into the carceral system back in 1995,” he said. “Nothing has changed when it comes to health services. Nothing has changed when it also comes to psychological services.”

Franklin said he hoped the move would embolden other inmates “to tell their story and just be able to have the public know what’s really going on.”

Inmate advocates and state lawmakers on both sides of the aisle said the charges against former Warden Randall Hepp and the others should serve as a clarion call for reform, and speed up the closure of Waupun and another sorely outdated prison at Green Bay, which are both more than 100 years old.

“For nearly six years, Governor Evers has ignored the experts, the staff, and the taxpayers by not decommissioning these two crumbling, 19th century buildings,” Rep. David Steffen, R-Howard, said in a statement. “It is well past the time for the Governor to put his politics aside and do the right thing: close (Green Bay Correctional Institution and Waupun Correctional Institution). Our prison system is in desperate need of responsible leadership from our Governor and the deficiencies within the DOC must be addressed.”

State Rep. Michael Schraa, chair of the Assembly corrections committee, told the Wisconsin State Journal he was “shocked and dismayed” to hear the findings of Dodge County Sheriff Dale Schmidt’s investigation.

“I don’t know if, in Wisconsin’s history, if a warden has ever been arrested before while still serving,” Schraa said.

Schraa, R-Oshkosh, said he’s planning to convene the Assembly’s Committee on Corrections in the near future to hold an investigative hearing with state DOC officials to learn more about the situation. He said he will likely be pursuing additional legislative oversight over the agency.

“We really, for one, need to find our how this happened, how this was allowed to happen, and more importantly, we want to make sure that this never happens again in the future,” Schraa said.

The charges also resulted in a bipartisan call for the state to close the prisons at Waupun and Green Bay.

Schmidt’s investigation, Rep. Ryan Clancy, D-Milwaukee, said in a statement, “highlights both the urgent need for improvement of conditions of confinement within Wisconsin’s prisons and jails, and also that many facilities in the state are wholly inappropriate to house people who are incarcerated entirely.”

“Advocates and news outlets have been warning about the overcrowding and abuses occurring in Wisconsin’s jails and prisons for years, yet things continue to get worse,” Rep. Darrin Madison, D-Milwaukee, said in a statement. “The State Legislature has sat idly by and watched the problem unfold for over a decade.”

State Journal reporter Mitchell Schmidt contributed to this report.