Evers hasn’t taken action to end it, though he could

While campaigning in 2018, Tony Evers said he supports banning the practice of keeping inmates in solitary confinement as a way to manage behavior. Media reports at the time noted that a group of Wisconsin inmates planned to stop eating in an effort to persuade Evers to scale back the use of solitary confinement in state prisons. 

In April 2019, PolitiFact Wisconsin noted that Evers could make such a move to ban solitary confinement unilaterally through an executive order, but he had not yet taken any action and we rated the promise Stalled. 

In Evers’ 2021-23 budget, no reference was made to ending solitary confinement under the Justice and Reform heading. In addition, we found no mention of ending solitary confinement in the listing of the governor’s Executive Orders for the years 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022. 

According to WI Admin Code § DOC 308.04, as of March 28, 2022, an inmate may be placed in “Administrative (solitary) confinement, which is an involuntary status for the segregated confinement of an inmate whose continued presence in general population poses a serious threat to life, property, self, staff, or other inmates, or to the security or orderly running of the institution.”

We asked Evers’ staff for any evidence on progress related to this promise, as well as others, but have not received a response.

Since no movement has apparently been made, we are rating this Promise Broken.