In response to a five-month investigation that uncovered allegations of staff-on-inmate abuse in the segregation unit of Waupun Correctional Institution, faith leaders demanded Tuesday that Gov. Scott Walker request an independent investigation of solitary confinement practices at Waupun and in prisons throughout the state.
Twenty-eight of the 40 allegations identified in a July 20 report by the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism — a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization based in Madison — involve a single guard.
He is accused of physical and psychological abuses against inmates including knee strikes, choke holds, wall slams, racial slurs and genital touching during strip-searches.
“This is yet another case of how the Wisconsin Department of Corrections is out of control,” said the Rev. Jerry Hancock, a former Dane County deputy district attorney who is now head of the Prison Ministry Project for the United Church of Christ.
Faith leaders gathered this month at the statehouse to ask a state criminal justice advisory board to hold the governor and Department of Corrections accountable for enacting prison reform. But since then, the leaders have lost faith that an effective internal investigation could be held.
“It is clear that the Department of Corrections cannot be asked to investigate itself,” the faith-based coalition WISDOM wrote in a letter to the governor.
via Faith leaders prod Scott Walker on alleged inmate abuse.