Last week, Dane County Executive Joe Parisi and Dane County Sheriff Kalvin Barrett held a press conference, calling on the County Board to approve a referendum to approve additional funding to build a new Dane County Jail.
The call for a referendum comes after soaring inflationary costs for the project. Now, the project to build a new jail stands just over $175 million dollars. That’s $10 million more than the county approved back in March, which was itself $16 million more than 2019 estimates from when the project was first approved.
To approve the additional funding needed to even start bidding the jail construction to contractors, a budget amendment would need to be passed by the County Board. That vote would require approval from two-thirds of the board. A referendum, however, would only require a simple majority from the County Board. Parisi says that this may be the only way a new jail could be built.
“The jail project is at a do or die moment. Due to the approaching deadline of already approved funding, as well as the additional $10 million needed to get the project across the finish line, time is running out and the county needs to act now. If we fail to act and this project does not move forward, it is only a matter of time before there is a lawsuit, a tragedy, or both,” Parisi says.
Parisi says that he understands the pains the board is feeling in approving additional money for the controversial project. He says the goal is a safer jail.
“Nobody likes to spend extra money on the jail, certainly not me or the sheriff. But being in a position of leadership means that we have to make difficult decisions. If the board does not have the votes to move this forward, that’s understandable, but then it’s time to put this decades long debate to rest and put it to the voters,” Parisi says.
The jail in the city-county building was built in 1953. Sheriff Kalvin Barrett has called the current conditions inhumane, unsafe, and borderline unconstitutional. And he laments that he is now the third Dane County Sheriff asking the board for a new, safer jail.
“Let’s talk a little bit about the City-County Building and the facts. The City-County Building was built in 1953. Think about where we were with our philosophy. 1953 was before Brown v Board of Educations, which desegregated schools in 1954. The jail was built in 1953, before the Supreme Court ruled on Loving v Virginia in 1967, which made it unconstitutional for states to make interracial marriage illegal. Think about where we were at the time this facility was built, and this facility showcases the values at that time,” Barrett says.
Last week, I went on a tour of the Dane County Jail, to see for myself the current state of the jail.
There are really two jails in downtown Madison, the jail above the Public Safety Building, and the true Dane County Jail, which sits next door above the City-County Building. The two jails are connected by an underground tunnel.
We began in the jail above the Public Safety Building, which was built in the 1980s, and is considered the “more modern” section of the jail. White concrete blocks line the walls, and hard gray concrete floors cause an echo no matter where you are within the jail.
There are no medical or mental health beds in the jail. People going through a medical or a mental health crisis are put in solitary confinement cells. These are 5ft by 7ft concrete rectangles – I can touch both ends with my arms outstretched.
A concrete outcropping in the back of the cell is used as a bed – a a place to lay a thin, foam mattress. A silver toilet and sink, some writing in pencil on the wall. That’s it. Sheriff Barrett says that these have to be used for any sort of medical incident. People who are pregnant spend all of their time in these cells.
There are two options inside the cells: pure silence, or deafening roars.
Sheriff Barrett then brought me to the men’s holding area, where jail resident’s go before joining the general population. It was here that I was first introduced to the free tablets the jail provides to jail residents.. With these tablets, residents are able to make phone calls and send text messages, take classes, read books, and stream music or movies.
In the men’s holding area I was in, there were around 12 tablets available for 34 people. . In other parts of the jail, a pod of 8 people may only have one or two working tablets. This can cause issues, as who can decide who gets to use the tablets when?
Sheriff Barrett says that adding more tablets could crash the wi-fi signal, which is hindered by the jail’s large concrete walls. Barrett says that a new facility would help to fix this issue.
Throughout the rest of the tour, we’d be stopped by jail residents, who voiced their frustration that there weren’t enough tablets to go around, and that they frequently malfunctioned. . Even with a tablet technician on staff, taking a tablet out for repairs just meant one less tablet to go around.
We walked to the first pod in the Public Safety Building Jail. These pods are used for the general population, and is where most jail residents spend the bulk of their time. In the Public Safety Building, the pod is an open area with carpeting, with showers and bathrooms on one side, bunk beds on the other, and tables and TVs in the center. There are no visible cells, or bars.
This, Sheriff Barrett explains, is what a new jail would look like – less of a cage. There is a calming color scheme, which Barrett says has been shown to reduce anger and violence.
As Sheriff Barrett is showing me the pod, a jail resident comes up to us and starts a conversation, about the class he just came from, and about my audio equipment. After chatting a minute, he leaves, and Barrett explains that this is exactly what the pods were meant to do.
“These are the interactions that are needed. 97-99% of those incarcerated are coming back to our communities. How do we want them coming back, do we want them coming back pissed off, bitter, broken, or do we want them better? If we treat them with respect, they will leave better and treat the community with respect. We talk, we shake hands, they can come and go, they can watch TV, they are not locked in cages. When we talk about jails being cages, what we have in the City-County Building is cages,” Barrett says.
With this, we made our way over to the City-County Building Jail. This jail was constructed in 1953, and shows its age.
It’s connected to the Public Safety Building by an underground tunnel. As we make our way into the tunnel, and over the threshold into the old jail, the air immediately changes. It feels heaviers, dirtier, filled with cloying dust.
Barrett says that both jail workers and residents themselves walk through this tunnel every day, depending on what services they are using, and where those services are located.
If you’ve ever gone into the basement of, say, an old school or old office building, then you’ve experienced the mood of the old Dane County Jail. Everything on this side just feels old. There’s more metal: metal doors, metal walls, metal railings. It feels like I’ve traveled back in time.
Our first stop in the City-County Building is the medical ward. I use the phrase medical ward, but what I truly mean is solitary confinement cell. The small cell, the same size as the last one, 5ft by 7ft, is outfitted with a small bed and a privacy curtain.
“They get a mattress, and if they are pregnant they get two mattresses. That’s all we can offer. What we need to ask each and every person, especially when it comes to this referendum, is does this reflect our values? If it was your niece, daughter, mother, father, and they had to come in here, is this appropriate?” Barrett says.
There are no pods in the City County Building Jail. Instead there are 8 cells and a small common area (a table, a bathroom, a landline phone). It’s full of cold metal and concrete.
And Sheriff Barrett says there are security issues, as there is no direct line of sight into the cells. This means that, if someone were to try to harm themselves or hang themselves, guards would only know if the other inmates alerted them.
The jail in the City County Building also has solitary confinement cells. The cells are similar to the solitary cells on the other side, but with one key difference: the light. There is one, dim light in the cell, that never shuts off. This means that, during the day, it’s hard to see just about anything. No reading or writing, it would be difficult to read any words. But it is just enough light to keep people up at night.
Sheriff Barrett says that building a new jail would be the first step towards helping to reduce recidivism, and make people less hostile when they leave the jail.
“66.2% of people incarcerated right now are people of color. When we talk about criminal justice reform, and we want to affect the people most affected by the disparities, it starts with the environment and the jail they are being housed in. We want to bring them back to our community built up and better, not broken and bitter,” Barrett says.
A referendum to add the needed money to build a new jail was not on the agenda for last Thursday’s County Board meeting, and is not currently on the agenda for any future meetings. The budget amendment to have the board itself to approve the additional funding will be discussed at tomorrow night’s Public Works and Transportation Committee.
To get the referendum on the ballot for November, the board will need to approve the referendum by August.
Photos courtesy: Nate Wegehaupt / WORT News Team
