Before you get to the heart of the story, remember that Walker was told in 2012 by a Racine County judge that youth were being mistreated at the facility known as Lincoln Hills up north to which Walker's brain trust had decided urban offenders should he sent from SE Wisconsin.
I noted in 2011 that his closing of the boys' facility long-located in Waukesha County was a mistake:
I noted in 2011 that his closing of the boys' facility long-located in Waukesha County was a mistake:
Good-bye Ethan Allen School for Boys, a juvenile justice facility at Wales, as I reported earlier.
The workers are stunned. The plan is bad for them, the kids sent there and the community...Walker gave no real warning.The roll forward to this report of mine a year ago:
On Walker's watch, Lincoln Hills is a humanitarian crisis
Victimized guard says Walker shares blame for her beating...
Now there is reporting of the details surrounding a suicide attempt at the female unit at the youth prison that has left a teenage-girl in this state facility with permanent jnjury...
Do you remember this disgusting story about conditions in the state's youth prison which we the taxpayers pay for?
Lincoln Hills youth had toes amputated after run-in with staff
The allegations have been horrendous and are getting worse:
...teenagers sentenced to serve time at the state’s youth prison in Irma face being taken to a cell no larger than about the size of a gas station bathroom, outfitted with a single metal bed and metal toilet. There’s one window in the cell’s door, as wide as the inmate’s face, that looks across a hallway into another cell...
Why should it take a federal lawsuit to bring this nightmare more fully to public attention, and to the authorities to bring the nightmare to a close?
Enough.Well, today Walker finally gets around to announcing a possible solution - - a plan long available but which Walker would embrace - - to the crisis at the Lincoln Hills youth prison which he set in motion during his first budget's meddling that now will take at least two years to implement:
Walker's move comes six years after his office was first notified by a judge of problems at the facility, three years after a sweeping criminal investigation of the prison began, six months after a federal judge put restrictions on how it operates and a month after federal prosecutors notified two former guards they could be charged with crimes.