Walker Administration Appoints Interim Head For Lincoln Hills

There’s a new interim director at the state’s troubled juvenile prison.

John Paquin, the current head of juvenile corrections for the state, has been assigned to the post by Wisconsin Corrections Department Secretary Jon Litscher until a new, permanent director is found.

The Lincoln Hills School near Wausau has been under federal investigation for three years and has had a series of violent incidents.

Gov. Scott Walker told reporters his administration’s goal is to keep staff and inmates safe.

“It’s a difficult place to work,” Walker said. “The offenders who are at this facility are people who otherwise, if they’d been adults, would have been sentenced to felonies — some of the most egregious felonies that people are sentenced for in the state. If they were adults they’d be in state correctional facilities for those violent felonies.”

A Lincoln Hills teacher has been on leave since Oct. 11 when she was punched unconscious. Inmate attacks earlier this week sent five guards to the hospital, and an August incident saw Juvenile inmates accessing the roof of one of the prison’s buildings and throwing items at guards before they were subdued.