Former prisons secretary says Walker ordered cancellation of his request for investigation of youth prisons

Ed Wall, former secretary of corrections

A television station is reporting Gov. Scott Walker's administration told former prisons Secretary Ed Wall to cancel his request for an association to investigate abuse at Wisconsin's youth prisons.

WSAW-TV reports Wall wrote to the Association of State Correctional Administrators in November 2015 asking for a review.

The association's former executive director said shortly after he received the letter, Wall told him that Walker's staff had instructed Wall to cancel the review request. Wall says the letter proves Walker knew about problems at the prison long before admitting them publicly.

In early 2016, a judge said he’d sent a letter to Walker in 2012, the year Wall was appointed prisons secretary, warning of possible criminal conduct at the Lincoln Hills School in Irma. At the time, Walker spokeswoman Laurel Patrick said the governor never saw the note, which was referred to the Corrections Department.

Wall resigned as prisons secretary in 2016 after the FBI took over an investigation into allegations at Lincoln Hills and Copper Lake, the state’s juvenile correction facility for girls. Allegations included physical and sexual abuse of youth, witness and victim intimidation, and evidence tampering.

In Unethical, a book released in August about his years as corrections secretary, Wall wrote that Walker and Attorney General Brad Schimel drove him to the brink of suicide with their refusal to act and their subsequent scapegoating of him.

He also slammed Walker for refusing to visit the prisons. Walker responded that he saw "no value" in visiting them.

Walker ultimately decided to close Lincoln Hills and Copper Lake and replace them with regional facilities. The governor has long been a proponent of privatizing Wisconsin’s prisons.

The full title of Wall’s memoir is Unethical: Life in Scott Walker’s Cabinet and the Dirty Side of Politics.