ALLOUEZ, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) — In recent weeks, there have been a handful of complaints of rodent infestation inside Green Bay Correctional Institution.
The Department of Corrections says staff has worked to resolve this issue, but loved ones and advocates for inmates are claiming the issue persists.
Mice getting into the cells at Green Bay Correctional Institution is a familiar problem for Dant’e Cottingham. He served about 11 of his 27 years in prison at the facility and is now helping a family with the issue as the interim associate director of EXPO of Wisconsin. EXPO stands for Ex-Incarcerated People Organizing.
“So out of the 27 years that I was in prison, you would see it every once in a while, like you’d see a mouse coming in, but it’s not like Green Bay,” said Cottingham. “Like Green Bay is a level of its own when it comes to that specifically.”
Cottingham says the mice get in cells through a gap at the bottom of the door. He says men would try to put shirts in the gap to keep the mice out.
“A lot of the correctional officers, they’ll see that shirt and they will give you a counter report because they say it prevents the door from closing completely, which it doesn’t,” said Cottingham.
The Wisconsin Department of Corrections sent a response in regards to this issue:
“We are aware there had been complaints of mice at GBCI,” Kevin Hoffman, Deputy Director of Communications for Wisconsin Department of Corrections, wrote in an email. “However, staff have worked to resolve this issue and they have not received complaints in weeks.”
The response was shared with Cottingham, who said it sounds similar to what the state sent the family he has been working with on the issue.
“They said something similar, “have not fallen on deaf ears, they put some mouse traps in place and they encouraged the men incarcerated not to feed the mice”,” said Cottingham. “According to her son, that has done absolutely nothing. Like, it’s still an infestation. It’s still a problem and it’s still a daily issue.”
Patrick Wycoff, the executive director for the union that represents correctional employees, says he has not heard from any members about the issue.
A 2020 state-funded report found the 125-year-old building should be shut down. A report in 2009 stated something similar.
Cottingham says he agrees.
“It’s not right to keep people in that environment,” said Cottingham. “I don’t think there is a way to fix it. I don’t think a band aid exists for it.”
The closure has been part of recent state budget discussions, but hasn’t made it to the final product.
