1/17/19
Columbia Correctional Institution has been under lockdown since Monday, 1/14/19. People on the inside have not been able to shower and are being given inadequate food at meals. There has not been any information presented to people inside or outside on the reasons for the lockdown, or when it will end. To see the timeline of deteriorating conditions in Columbia and IWOC’s campaign in response go here. To see an overview of conditions at Columbia go here. To see recent updates on this campaign click here.
There are a few quick things people can do in response:
Phone Zap
Call the Warden of Columbia Correctional today, at 920-948-7143. Sample script “Why is Columbia Correctional Institution under lockdown? When will this lockdown end? Your security measures are restricting food and showers for people. This is inhumane and needs to stop immediately.”
Here what it sounds like to participate in this phone zap here:
Email Zap
Email the Warden at Susan.Novak@wisconsin.gov same sample script as above. When sending this email cc all of these email addresses: Susan.Novak@wisconsin.gov, Kalen.Ruck@wisconsin.gov, Lucas.Weber@wisconsin.gov, Cathy.Jess@wisconsin.gov, iwoc.milwaukee@gmail.com
This helps spread the message to other top people at Columbia Correctional and in the Madison DOC.
Open Record Zap
In the past, there’s been some indications that doing open record requests on problems at a facility may help pressure prisons into making changes, since they know that there is outside attention, gathering of more information and not fixing problems will make them look worse. Having multiple people doing this may add to the impact.Open Records Request
To participate in this, email DOCPublicRecords@wisconsin.gov
Sample script: “I’m making an open records request for all internal documents inside Columbia Correctional Institution that relate to the lockdown that began on 1/14/19. I want a record of all emails sent or received by Warden Novak and Security Director Weber between 1/10/19 and 1/16/19 that include the phrase “lockdown” in them, and any other relevant documents about this situation.”
If you do this they’ll send a confirmation email that they’ve received the request, and should contact you within several weeks with the record, request for more information, or statement that no such records exist. If you have questions on follow, you can contact us.
If you engage in any of these actions, please email us at iwoc.milwaukee@gmail.com to let us know that you did this, so we can track overall numbers and impact. If you want to volunteer with this campaign more intensely or have other ideas on how to help, please email us or fill out the volunteer form here. Thank you for taking the time to help with this. An injury to one is an injury to all.