May 11, 2010

State pulled inmates out of the Racine County Jail over health concerns

The Department of Corrections removed 30 inmates from the Racine County Jail earlier this year over concerns with the facility's health care services, according to a department spokesperson.

Linda Eggert, public information director for the Department of Corrections, released the following statement Tuesday about the Racine County Jail:
On March 26, 2010, Wisconsin Department of Corrections (DOC) Secretary Rick Raemisch sent a letter to Racine County Sheriff Robert Carlson informing him that the DOC was exercising its right under the terms of our contract to terminate the contract for the long term housing of DOC state prison inmates. Shortly after notification, the DOC transferred about 30 inmates from the Racine County jail back to our Division of Adult Institutions.

The decision to remove state prison inmates from the Racine County jail was not based on a single event, but rather on a culmination of events, including concerns about the organizational structure and staffing patterns of its health care system. Health care staffing at the Racine County Jail remains a concern of ours and at this time the Department cannot justify the long term housing of our state inmates at that facility.

The Department remains open to the idea of reevaluating the status of the contract based on the Racine County Jail’s response to our concerns.
The state is still housing inmates short-term at the Racine County Jail.

The County Board is expected to vote tonight on spending $153,000 to hire a full-time nurse practioner and to double the number of hours a doctor is in the jail to 12. As we reported last week, Sheriff Robert Carlson said the request for additional medical staff was due, at least in part, to the state's decision to remove its inmates.

Here's our story from last week: State raises concerns about county jail's medical staff

4 comments:

  1. Would spending the additional funds for nurse practioner result in increased revenue to the County? Thus creating a "for profit" net gain for the Racine County Taxpayers? If so then we should explore the hiring of the personnel as needed. If not then is there a harm in leaving the position open?

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  2. How about reducing the number of inmates to match the staffing. Do we have inmates held for misdemeanor traffic ticket payments, etc.? Downtown's comment reveals a paradigm that the justification for incarceration is the profit. I do not think that the object of incarceration should be profit! It should be the protection of society and the rehabilitation of the inmate. Those goals need to be met regardless of costs.

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  3. How long will it take for Racine County to wake up? I really feel sorry for the people of Racine County who have been stuck with McReynolds all these years. He's been the puppet master way too long...it's time for change! Start with not electing Gonzalez (another one of McReynolds' good ole boys) for Sheriff.

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  4. In 2002, when Dickert ran for Assembly against Turner, his campaign manager was Johnathan Delagrave.

    Delagrave then ran Mac Reynolds for Exec.

    Nice job there jon

    ReplyDelete