State Agrees To End Use Of Pepper Spray, Restrict Solitary Under Settlement With Teen Inmates

The state Department of Corrections agreed to eventually ban its guards from using pepper spray and limit using solitary confinement to manage behavior of teen inmates under a settlement reached Friday.

The agreement would within one year phase out much of the practices at the Lincoln Hills School for Boys and Copper Lake School for Girls in Irma — the state’s only youth prison and the subject of a number of lawsuits including the federal class-action suit resolved Friday. The suit was brought by a number of current and former inmates at the prison who were represented by the American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin and the Juvenile Law Center.