ALLOUEZ, Wis. (WFRV) – Community members packed a special meeting at Allouez village hall on Thursday night to get an update on progress to potentially close the unpopular Green Bay Correctional Institution (GBCI).
“We have a problem right now, the facility is overcrowded and it isn’t entirely safe,” said state senator Jamie Wall. “We shouldn’t just kick the can down the road indefinitely.”
In his budget proposal, Governor Tony Evers included funding to eventually shutter the GBCI as part of a larger statewide prison reform package. During the meeting on Thursday night, Senator Wall explained to the community how this would all work.
The governor’s statewide prison reform package has two distinct parts. There’s a policy part to it which focuses on the treatment of prisoners with an emphasis on rehabilitation programs. The other part of the plan is modifying existing juvenile detention centers and prisons and building several new juvenile detention centers.
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This would eventually allow Wisconsin’s Department of Corrections officials to relocate the inmates at the GBCI to these new facilities. The goal is to shutter GBCI by 2029.
“It’s just a really big deal, a big deal for Allouez, a big deal for Northeast Wisconsin, and it’s a big deal for Wisconsin as a whole,” said state representative Benjamin Franklin.
Wall, Franklin, and state representative David Steffen attended the special meeting in Allouez on Thursday night to debrief community members on the governor’s budget proposal in regards to closing the GBCI and the potential path forward. All three men have been strong advocates for closing down the GBCI.
While each legislator said that the Governor’s prison reform proposal isn’t perfect, they said there were major chunks of it that they could support.
“I think if you look at the overall structure, that’s something we can support, just need to look at the details that need a few revisions to it,” Franklin told Local 5 News.
“I think the most important thing that we can do is to take that first step on that road that the governor outlined, the physical changes to the corrections system,” Wall said. “That means standing up new juvenile centers, including one here in Northeast Wisconsin.”
According to Wall, budget negotiations have stalled right now. Joint Finance Committee members are in the process of modifying the governor’s budget proposal and it’s unknown if they’ll include funding to close the GBCI in their version of the document.
Wall said that as of Thursday, the Joint Finance Committee hasn’t reviewed budget items related to the state’s Department of Corrections.
All three legislators said they’re united in finding a way to close the GBCI. It’s a sentiment echoed by Allouez village leaders who have circulated a petition to close the GBCI that has thousands of signatures.
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GBCI is 126 years old. Proponents of shuttering the facility say that it’s understaffed, outdated, costly to maintain, and presents dangers to the inmates living there and all those who work there as well. There’s also a lack of vocational and mental health programs for inmates living there, which some community members say leads to a high rate of reoffenders.
“It is the roughest, toughest prison that you can think of,” said Jeffrey Watson, who said he was a former inmate at GBCI.
Allouez village leaders say there’s an opportunity to bring in a mixed-use development on the prison’s property if it were to shut down. According to a preliminary rendering of a potential development there, it could include apartments, storefronts, parks, and much more.
“I want people to be able to walk out of this meeting being very proud of our representatives,” said Allouez village president Jim Rafter, who has been a leading voice in the fight to close down the GBCI. “I believe they all want it to be closed. We have Republicans and Democrats working together to get the job done.”
