303.19 Employment of prisoners; time credits, earnings and rewards.

(1) The superintendent of the house of correction shall place all inmates at such employments, and shall cause all inmates who are minors to be instructed in such branches of useful knowledge, as shall be prescribed by the county board, but no goods manufactured therein shall be offered for sale or sold in the open market, except creative art, literary, musical, handicraft or hobby craft products produced by a prisoner at leisure.

(2) The superintendent may employ such prisoners outside of the institution, for the purpose of cultivating the farm of the institution or in doing any other work necessary to be done in the regular business thereof, or doing work for other county departments or institutions, or in the construction of public highways within the county. In all such cases, the superintendent shall detail a force from the house of correction as the superintendent considers necessary to guard the prisoners.

(3) The superintendent shall keep a true record of the conduct of each prisoner, specifying each infraction of the rules of discipline; and at the end of each month shall give a certificate of good conduct to each prisoner against whom no such infraction is recorded, subject to annulment by the department for subsequent misconduct. Upon each such certificate issued to any such prisoner serving sentence for a misdemeanor the prisoner may be credited, at the discretion of the superintendent, with a diminution of the sentence not exceeding 5 days. Each such prisoner serving sentence for a felony shall receive time credits as provided in s. 302.11.

(4) The county board may, pursuant to its regulations approved by the department, extend to those prisoners similar pecuniary earnings and rewards, subject to similar conditions and limitations as those prescribed by s. 302.12 for prisoners in the Wisconsin state prisons.

History: 1971 c. 36; 1977 c. 418 s. 924 (18) (e); 1983 a. 66; 1989 a. 31 s. 1694; Stats. 1989 s. 303.19; 1989 a. 359.

Prisoners' due process rights are discussed. Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U.S. 539, 41 L. Ed. 2d 935 (1974).