Woman beaten by teen inmate blames Scott Walker administration, injunction for unsafe conditions

MADISON - A prison teacher who was battered by a teen inmate last week says the state's juvenile prison is a more dangerous place now because of a recent court order and how Gov. Scott Walker's administration has responded to it.

The inmate who knocked her out Oct. 11 had previously beaten others, but couldn’t be restrained in the classroom because of a court ruling that limits the use of handcuffs at Lincoln Hills School for Boys and Copper Lake School for Girls. No guard was in the room when the assault occurred, said the teacher, Pandora Lobacz. 

RELATED:Lincoln Hills teacher punched by juvenile inmate, hospitalized

FULL COVERAGE:How the Lincoln Hills crisis unfolded

“Those kids are basically running the show now,” Lobacz said in an interview. “They’ve been emboldened.”

The inmate is bigger than Lobacz, who has a form of dwarfism and is 4-foot-7 and weighs 110 pounds. He punched the longtime teacher in the face, giving her a black eye, knocking her out and sending her to the hospital, she said. She had a heart monitor installed as a result of the assault.

She blamed the problems at the prison complex on Walker's administration and the American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin, which sued over conditions there. She said it was “horrible” that Walker had never visited Lincoln Hills.

“I think it’s wrong on every level that he can be sitting in his office in Madison and doesn’t even have enough compassion to check on state workers to see what is going on,” she said.

Corrections spokesman Tristan Cook said officials visit the prison complex frequently and have made major changes there. It "remains a safe facility for staff and youth," he said by email.

Lincoln Hills and Copper Lake, which share a campus 30 miles north of Wausau, have been the subject of a criminal investigation into prisoner abuse and child neglect for nearly three years.

Separately, U.S. District Judge James Peterson issued an injunction this summer limiting the use of pepper spray, solitary confinement and restraints at the prison complex. That ruling came in response to the lawsuit brought by inmates represented by the ACLU of Wisconsin and Juvenile Law Center.

RELATED:Wisconsin officials: 'Unrest' by teen inmates hinders court-ordered changes at Lincoln Hills

Lobacz, who has worked in juvenile corrections for nearly 25 years and has a master's degree in art therapy, was teaching inmates last week in a small room in the solitary confinement unit at Lincoln Hills when the assault happened. The inmate had been in a different classroom with a different teacher and didn’t want to change to Lobacz’s room, she said.

When he entered her room, he didn’t sit down but instead went to the back of the room and clenched and unclenched his fists, she said. She tried to get him to follow classroom rules, but he came up to her desk and said he was running things, not her, she said.

She called security staff but got a busy signal. The inmate put himself between Lobacz and the door, clenched his fists and made threats, she said. Other inmates said, “Don’t do it” and told the boy to sit down, Lobacz said.

“Get him out of here!” Lobacz yelled.

The inmate punched her in the face, knocking her out, she said.

Guards responded and took the inmate away. Lobacz called for managers, and Deputy Superintendent Lori McAllister and other top officials soon came running.

“I said to them, ‘Look at me, look at me. What’s it going to take? Is someone going to have to get killed? Or is there going to have to be an institution riot?’ ” she recalled.

She spent two days in the hospital and has been going to medical appointments since then.

“How do you get over that?” she said of the assault. “I haven’t slept in four days.”

The inmate has been involved in other recent assaults, including one in which a guard’s tooth was knocked out, according to Lobacz and other staff. Both incidents were referred to the Lincoln County Sheriff's Office and the inmate has been transferred to another institution, according to the Department of Corrections.

Lobacz said before the injunction, an inmate this aggressive would never have been in her classroom.

Jessica Feierman, associate director of the Juvenile Law Center, called the incident disturbing and said Lincoln Hills officials had failed to take the right approach with the prison complex. When Ohio reduced its use of solitary confinement in its juvenile prison system, the rate of violence also declined because officials began providing more programming, she said. 

"What works is helping children build problem-solving skills, not solitary confinement, restraints and pepper spray," Feierman said by email. "The goal is to make facilities safer for everyone, including youth and staff."

Jeffrey Roman and Sharlen Moore, co-founders of the advocacy group Youth Justice Milwaukee, said the incident showed the need for systemic change. 

“It's clear that Lincoln Hills is a harmful environment for all involved, and closing the prison remains the best option to protect communities across Wisconsin,” they said in a statement.

Cook, the Department of Corrections spokesman, said it was "extremely relevant" to note Lobacz had received self-defense training at the prison, but he did not say how that training helped in this specific incident. 

In recent years, Lincoln Hills has overhauled its policies, installed more cameras, equipped guards with body cameras, expanded programming for inmates and is now implementing the changes required by the court order, he said. 

"The department has already spent significant resources and will continue to make substantial investments to maintain a safe and secure institution for staff and youth," he said by email. "We acknowledge that corrections is a challenging profession, and we are incredibly thankful for the hard work of our staff every day to make a positive difference in the lives of youth in DOC custody."

Lobacz said problems at the facility began in 2011, when the Walker administration closed Ethan Allen School in Waukesha County and Southern Oaks School for Girls in Racine County and brought their populations to the campus in Lincoln County.

She said they were exacerbated by Act 10, the law Walker signed that greatly reduced collective bargaining for public employees. Front-line staff members have complained that they have less say in security issues since Act 10 became law in 2011.

Life for staff members has also been complicated by a 2015 incident in which an inmate had his toes partially amputated after a guard slammed a door on the inmate’s foot, Lobacz said. The state reached a $300,000 settlement with that inmate, Kenyadi Evans.

That payment and the ACLU lawsuit have prompted inmates to provoke staff, she said.

“Out of their mouths every day is, ‘I’m going to sue you,’ ” Lobacz said.

Senate Minority Leader Jennifer Shilling (D-La Crosse) blamed Walker for the problems at the institution.

“I don’t know how many more officers and children need to be injured before Gov. Walker accepts responsibility for the situation he has created at Lincoln Hills,” she said in a statement. “The ongoing crisis at Lincoln Hills is a threat to everyone who steps foot in that facility."