MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Gov.-elect Tony Evers has some big ideas about how to reform Wisconsin’s overcrowded prison system.
The question now is how he’ll pull them off and whether Republican legislators will let him.
Gov. Scott Walker never visited a prison during his eight years as governor, but Evers has promised to tour the state’s troubled Lincoln Hills juvenile prison his first week in office. He also wants to cut the prison population in half but hasn’t released a plan for how to do it.
Evers also supports stopping parole revocations when a crime hasn’t been committed, banning employees from asking for job applicants’ criminal history, eliminating mandatory sentence minimums and banning solitary confinement.
But doing that with a likely resistant Republican Legislature will be difficult.
