Lonely deaths in Wisconsin prison

By Alexandria Staubach

The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the phenomenon of lonely deaths in nursing homes and hospitals, but such lonely deaths continue in the Wisconsin prison system even post-pandemic.

In the Wisconsin prison system, a terminal-illness diagnosis lands an imprisoned individual in Dodge Correctional Institution (DCI). While DCI principally serves as the reception center for all adult males entering the Wisconsin Department of Corrections (DOC) system, it also serves as the central medical unit for the male DOC population. It is where sentences begin and where life may end.

Removal to DCI for terminal-illness care breaks bonds of friendship between incarcerated individuals that formed over years or even decades.

“Once that person goes to DCI you know you may not ever see or talk to them again. You may not ever find out what happens to them,” said Roy Rogers, a former juvenile lifer in the Wisconsin prison system. (Rogers is now a data processor, a preentry and reentry liaison for The Community, and a WJI board member.)

WJI inquired whether DOC permits video or any other form of visitation between terminally ill incarcerated persons and their incarcerated friends.

“Wisconsin DOC has never allowed a person in our care to be on another person in our care’s visiting list,” John Beard, director of communications for the DOC, told WJI.

“Dodge Correctional Institution is one of our institutions which has trained certified peer specialists within the population. So, if an individual requests peer support, they would have access to another person in our care who is trained to provide that,” Beard said.

In other words, those who spend their last days as residents of the DCI infirmary have the companionship of staff or volunteers whom they do not know, but not of their friends from within the DOC.

While incarcerated individuals may receive visitation with friends and family who are not incarcerated, the relationships formed between incarcerated persons are often their main relationships, said Rogers. 

Though in-person, peer-to-peer visitation among incarcerated individuals may not practically be feasible, DOC is equipped to and offers video visitation, according to its visitation policy. However, per Beard’s response to WJI, because the DOC does not permit persons in its care to be on each other’s visitation lists, the DOC does not permit video visits between individuals who are both incarcerated.

Nearly 20% of the U.S. prison population is older than age 50 according to June 2023 Federal Bureau of Prisons statistics. Of the 21,171 persons incarcerated in the DOC as of May 31, 2023, nearly 24% were older than 50, including 46 individuals 80 or older.

DCI’s infirmary unit holds 60 beds, with seven rooms dedicated to palliative care. According to the DOC, “a number” of incarcerated patients are residents of this infirmary. In June 2022 the oldest person incarcerated at DCI was 98 years old.

The infirmary unit provides care to patients who require 24-hour or subacute nursing care. The palliative care program provides “a valuable service to patients with terminal illnesses, providing comfort and symptom management, when release to the community is not possible,” according to DCI’s 2022 Annual Report.