MILWAUKEE (WRN-WSAU) Youth offenders from Milwaukee County may soon be housed closer to home. The county board voting unanimously to set in motion plans for removing nearly 170 county youth this year from a troubled state juvenile prison in northern Wisconsin, and place them in secure detention in the county. The board declared a “state of emergency” for county teenagers at Lincoln Hills School for boys and the adjacent Copper Lake School for girls north of Wausau.
The Milwaukee County board had already passed a resolution urging prosecutors and judges not to send convicted youth offenders to Lincoln Hills.
Concern for safety of the youth at the state-run prison was prompted by an ongoing federal and state investigation into allegations of abuse, neglect, sexual assault and excessive use of force.
