GREEN BAY, Wis. — Gov. Tony Evers has proposed a $500 million prison overhaul plan. Part of that proposal includes closing the maximum security prison in Green Bay, known as Green Bay Correctional Institution, by 2029.
The Green Bay Correctional Institution (GBCI) opened its doors in 1898; that’s 50 years after Wisconsin became a state.
Back then, only eight inmates were housed at the facility. More than a century later, a lot has changed.
Those with experience inside the prison say the time has come to shut it down.
Philip Bennett knows firsthand what conditions are like inside the Green Bay Correctional Institution. Bennett is a former inmate of the GBCI. He said overcrowding is a big problem.
“We were three men in a cell, and it was very old,” said Bennett, who served a year at GBCI in 1999.
The facility is designed to house 749 prisoners. During the year that Bennett was there, prison records show the population at 1,000.
Bennett said he saw some awful things.
“You witnessed all those fights all the time. The toilets were backed up all the time because there were so many people in there. You could barely use the bathroom when you wanted to. You had no kind of privacy. And, I mean, I understand it’s a prison and all, and it’s not the Hilton, but I mean, it was a terrible place to be,” Bennett said.
Nearly 30 years later, conditions inside GBCI haven’t changed much, according to one woman, whose fiancé has been inside the prison for over a year. For privacy reasons, she asked to be identified only as “Michelle.”
“When he first got in there, they were still kind of on lockdown from everything that happened with the murder that happened in there, so they were only getting [recreation] one time a week, and like, just not livable conditions,” Michelle said.
Last August, an inmate doing time at GBCI for trying to kill his mother strangled his cellmate 19-year-old Micah Laureano for being Black and gay, investigators said.
As of March, the prison population is 1,103 men. Michelle’s fiancé said the conditions are inhumane.
“He has said things about there being cracks, a lot of pipe issues. There’s been sightings of bugs and really, just nasty things that you wouldn’t want to be around,” Michelle said.“He has said things about there being cracks, a lot of pipe issues. There’s been sightings of bugs and really, just nasty things that you wouldn’t want to be around,” Michelle said.
Bennett said he has completely turned his life around since getting out of GBCI. He’s a husband, a father and owns several businesses and restaurants in the Fox Valley.
Bennett said his time on the inside taught him a big lesson.
“Prison caused me to change the way I looked at life because I didn’t want to constantly do things that would lead me back to prison. But it was more of me changing my thinking,” Bennett said.
Bennett said he’d like to see the prison closed because there are better facilities to rehabilitate offenders.
“Regardless of what those guys did, the place should be more humane for people. People shouldn’t be dying in prison because of the conditions,” Bennett said.
Under Gov. Evers’ plan, the Green Bay Correctional Institution would eventually be shut down and prisoners transferred to other institutions.
