The current jail, primarily located above the City-County Building in downtown Madison, was first built in 1953, and contains no medical or mental health beds.
Current Dane County Sheriff Kalvin Barrett has railed against the conditions in the jail since he was first appointed in 2021. He’s repeatedly called the conditions within the jail inhumane, unsafe, and borderline unconstitutional.
The county has debated whether or not to build a new jail for decades, and last year multiple plans went before the Dane County Board to build a new one. But the cost to build a new jail has jumped by at least $10 million dollars, with inflationary pressures causing labor and materials costs to rise.
The Dane County Board has remained split over whether to approve the additional costs. In 2022, supervisors have gone back and forth over a variety of proposals to add additional funding or change the design of the jail.
Meanwhile, Barrett says that the board is not going to come to a consensus on how to move forward with the project by themselves.
“There are 37 Dane County Board members, which means that there are 37 different narratives, 37 different ideas, 37 different groups of constituents,” Barrett says. “I too agree with the words of our own Dane County Black Caucus who said less than 10 months ago that it’s difficult to make a decision with 37 different individuals. That’s why it needs to go to the people.”
Sheriff Barrett and three other former county sheriffs met at the Public Safety Building to urge county supervisors to put the issue to voters this April.
Today’s press conference comes days before the Dane County Board will decide whether to approve a resolution to add the question to the spring ballot. Specifically, it would ask Dane County voters whether the county should borrow an additional $13.5 million dollars to build a six story jail with no more than 825 beds.
Barrett was joined in today’s press conference by Rick Raemisch, Gary Hamblin, and Dave Mahoney, all former sheriff’s who are calling the current Dane County Jail unsafe for everyone involved.
In addition to closing down the current jail above the City-County Building, Sheriff Barrett says the new facility would allow for the jail to remove solitary confinement cells, add medical and mental health beds, and have programming space to teach jail residents life skills once they are released.
“Right now, we are limited in our programming space,” Sheriff Barrett says. “Classrooms where we can educate and empower those who are incarcerated, and provide them with the skills they need to be successful when they transition back into the community. We do not have enough space.”
Former Sheriff Mahoney echoed Barrett’s comments, saying that without programming space, they only set up those released from the jail for failure.
“If we want reforms that end the cycle of incarceration, we must address adding programs that end the core fundamental reasons people come into the criminal justice system,” Mahoney says.
Hamblin pointed to the fact that the county is shipping jail residents to other counties, due to the fact that parts of the current jail are unusable. He says that, not only is this costing Dane County thousands of dollars, but it isn’t fair to the people being sent to other county jails.
“The people being housed in (those other) facilities pay the price,” Hamblin says. “They can’t have visitation. How easy is it for someone to visit someone that’s incarcerated if they have to take an inner-city bus, which by the way does not go to (other county facilities), and get up there to do some kind of a visit? It’s impossible.”
Sheriff Barrett has been calling for the board to come to a decision on the Dane County Jail since he took office in 2021, but took a harsher tone at today’s press conference, accusing some supervisors, who he would not name, of intentionally sabotaging the plans to build a new jail.
“Certain members of the county board have shown a lack of empathy and comprehension of research, and evidence, leading to intentional delay tactics that place lives at risk, and is irresponsible with taxpayer dollars,” Barrett says.
Last year, the Dane County Sheriff’s Office began offering tours of the current jail to the public, and former Sheriff Raemisch encourages anyone with doubts about a new jail to take a tour for themselves.
“…and if at the end, you can look somebody in the eye and say ‘I wouldn’t mind if my father, my mother, my brother, my sister, my son, or my daughter, spent time there, then vote against the jail,” Raemisch says. “But I guarantee you, nobody would be able to walk through that and say ‘I wouldn’t mind if my relatives spent time there.’”
Even with the full endorsement of four past and current county sheriffs, board president Patrick Miles says that it is unlikely that the resolution to put the question on the ballot would pass on Thursday. The resolution has been shot down by three county committees, because, Miles says, the $13.5 million dollars that would be approved may not be enough.
“The design work is moving forward on the six story design,” Miles says. “The architect should have those designs finished later this month, then right around March we should get the final cost estimates once the 95% construction design documents are complete. At this point, it’s premature to say that we need $13.5 million to complete the project.”
The board will decide whether or not to put the question of funding the jail on the ballot at their next meeting this Thursday. That meeting begins at 7PM.
Photo courtesy: WORT Flickr
