WISCONSIN (NBC 26) — Inside Wisconsin's prisons, reform advocates say many of the state's roughly 24,000 inmates are at risk.
"It gives them tremendous exposure to any outbreak when you're bunked like that," Ex-Incarcerated People Organizing's lead organizer Jerome Dillard said.
At Oshkosh Correctional Institution, three inmates have tested positive for coronavirus. The Department of Corrections website shows two other inmates have tested positive at Columbia Correctional Institution. Across the state, nine staff members have tested positive for COVID-19.
"As the virus gets inside the prisons it will explode exponentially," ACLU staff attorney Tim Muth said.
Friday, the ACLU of Wisconsin filed a lawsuit to the state's supreme court to reduce the prison population.
"You've got to start immediately," Muth said.
The ACLU asked the state to release elderly and medically-vulnerable inmates in an effort to give other inmates more space.
Governor Tony Evers' chief legal council, Ryan Nilsestun, said they will respond to the lawsuit and highlighted measures already in place..
"It's something that we've focused on since the very beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic," Nilsestun said.
He said the state has lowered crimeless revocations to keep the prison population down, employees are screened when they come to work, and any quarantine measures are in place..
"We've done a lot of good work to keep the number of people who do have COVID-19 who are either incarcerated or work in the correctional institutions has been able to be kept to a fairly small number to date," Nilsestun said.
It's a number they and advocates will watch closely in the days and weeks ahead.
