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A common area of an empty eight-person cellblock on the seventh floor of the Dane County Jail.
A meeting of two Dane County Board committees did little to chart a clear path on the future of the long-stalled jail consolidation project, with supervisors voting to not recommend approval for a smaller jail plan that includes other calls for criminal justice changes that the board’s Black Caucus rolled out last week.
Supervisors had their first public discussion of the latest jail proposal on Thursday night as they face a historic public works undertaking that has been mired in ever-increasing costs and political deliberations as the extreme racial disparities and inhumane conditions in the county’s jail facilities continue.
The new plan, which has the support of MOSES, a key criminal justice reform organization in the community, would erect a five-story building with 725 beds.
The smaller facility would put the project back within budget and cost less to operate once opened, sponsors of the plan have said. Those sponsors include Sups. Anthony Gray, 14th District; April Kigeya, 15th District; Dana Pellebon, 33rd District; and Jacob Wright, 17th District.
But members of the board’s Public Works and Transportation committee voted 5-1 to recommend the plan for denial when it faces a full board vote on Aug. 18. The board’s Public Protection and Judiciary committee voted 5-1 to not make a recommendation one way or the other.
Detractors of the Black Caucus’ plan said the smaller facility doesn’t take into account future population growth. Should the facility get overcrowded, the cost of transferring inmates to other counties would cost the county untold money in the long run, argued Sup. Andrew Schauer, 21st District.
If the Black Caucus’ plan is rejected by the board, its opponents would still have to persuade their colleagues to support an extra $10 million to build a version of the jail OK’d by the board that was already millions over budget within months of getting approved.
“725 beds is simply too small, and it’s based on overly rosy projections,” Schauer said. “If the (resolution) would have not reduced the size of the jail, but instead added space and funds for programming, for exercise, for faith group space, I would have supported it. That would actually reduce recidivism and reduce the overall jail population.”
The board has appropriated $166 million to consolidate its existing jail facilities into a single campus that includes the Public Safety Building and a six-story tower with 825 beds. Supervisors signed off on that plan in March as a compromise because the original scope of the jail, a seven-story tower with 922 beds, had grown $24 million over budget at that time.
But even the compromise plan is now about $10 million over budget, Dane County Executive Joe Parisi announced in June.
The Black Caucus has suggested an 825-bed facility assumes that the jail’s staggering racial disparities won’t change.
On Thursday, 53% of the jail’s population was Black. Dane County is about 6% Black, according to the U.S. Census.
Last month, the JFA Institute, a criminal justice consultant, told the county’s Criminal Justice Council that high incarceration rates for Black people is a key driver of the jail’s population.
Calls for criminal justice reform that would reduce those disparities are included in the plan.
The plan’s language “urges” the Dane County legal system to start an 18-month weekend court pilot program and review how cash bail is used. Other language urges the sheriff to limit the number of federal prisoners to 10% of the jail’s population and wants law enforcement throughout the county to not arrest individuals who report crimes if they are wanted on a warrant for a nonviolent crime.
While the jail is under construction, officials can get to work making those proposals a reality so that the smaller facility can accommodate a reduced jail population with less racial inequality.
“That’s the point,” Pellebon said. “We’re good with spending $10 million. We’re good with 825 beds, but anything different we’re not good with.”
Pellebon showed consternation as she detailed how the “most progressive city, county in the state” is trying to build a bigger jail at a time when Republican officials like former Gov. Tommy Thompson have showed regret for their role in mass incarceration.
“That just doesn’t make sense to me,” she said.
On Aug. 3, Sheriff Kalvin Barrett closed part of the jail at the City-County Building, citing his office’s staffing shortages and the facility’s long-documented inhumane conditions.
The announcement came a day after the Black Caucus unveiled its proposal. Barrett doesn’t support it. He says a 725-bed facility doesn’t align with jail population projections and would ultimately require the City-County Building jail to remain open.
The partial closure of the facility resulted in 65 inmates being transferred to jails in other counties, with some going as far as 200 miles away to Oneida County.
At Thursday’s meeting, Barrett said the monthly cost is $105,000 to keep those inmates in other facilities. That price tag will shake out to $500,000 by the end of this year.
Another component of the latest jail plan involves eliminating “acute medical housing beds” to free up space in the facility.
Sponsors of the plan say inmates who need those beds would be accommodated at local hospitals.
The current jail plan, the 825-bed facility, would have 62 medical beds and 57 mental health beds. Those beds are proportionally divided up for men and women.
Barrett has said that inmates in need of hospital-level medical treatment are already sent to the hospital anyway.
“What we’re looking to have in regards to medical beds is not an infirmary,” the sheriff said. “It is a place to house residents who cannot be housed in general population due to a variety of medical issues that don’t quite meet the level of going to the hospital.”
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Lucas Robinson covers breaking news for the Wisconsin State Journal. He can be reached at (608) 252-6186.
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A common area of an empty eight-person cellblock on the seventh floor of the Dane County Jail.
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