Matthew Neumann describes Waupun prison conditions, including lockdowns, drug overdoses, isolation, staffing shortages, and a growing mental health crisis.
Located in the heartland of central Wisconsin, approximately 90 minutes north of Milwaukee, sits one of Wisconsin’s most notorious state penitentiaries. Waupun Correctional Institution (WCI) has long been considered the hardest prison in the state system. Beelzebub himself couldn’t live here.
Built in the mid-1800s, WCI is the oldest operating maximum security state prison in the Midwest. More than half its population is serving life or multiple life sentences. Like a large, mean dog in a small cage, inmates are always on high alert. We must know every inch of our surroundings at all times. Staying alert and being ready for the uninvited and unexpected is the only key to surviving.
I was sentenced to life in December 2019. I knew I would have an uphill battle within the broken justice system, but I never imagined the roller coaster ride I’d be on when this system shipped me off to the hardest prison in the state.
Waupun Prison resembles an 1800s dark castle, surrounded with gun towers and hidden behind 30-foot-high walls topped with sharp, shiny razor wire. But what happens inside those walls isn’t a ghost story or a Bigfoot sighting. I’m writing from inside the belly of this beast.
Life Inside a 5-by-9 Cell
As I sit locked in my 5-by-9 cage for 166 hours each week, dreading the muggy swamp weather forecasted for the next few months, I watch the wall ooze sweat, causing my pictures to fall to the floor.
As I pick them up, I’m reminded by the overflowing cup collecting the sweat pouring from under my stainless steel toilet that it’s time to empty it. I jump back onto my two-inch mattress, which now feels more like a wet sponge than a place to rest your head.
We’re often denied showers and recreation for days or even weeks at a time, usually categorized as a staff shortage. Unexpected absences can throw the whole prison into lockdown or modified movement, resulting in missed health appointments, religious services, job assignments, and even worse, court-mandated programs inmates with a possible release date need to complete before becoming eligible.
Staff shortages significantly disrupt prison operations and affect our psychological well-being. The absence of adequate staffing elevates anxiety, making inmates more aggressive and confrontational, because we feel even less control over lives we already have almost zero control over.
The questions spin at lightning-fast speed in our heads:
Will we get rec today?
Will I get to my doctor’s appointment?
Will we get a shower?
Did my family drive several hours just to be turned away?
Here at WCI, we often go more than 10 days in a row without being offered a shower. As for outside activities, I logged 17 hours of outside recreation for the entire year of 2025. For 2026, year to date, I’ve logged zero hours of outside recreation.
The cells here are windowless, so inmates without some type of movement pass can go long periods without seeing sunshine or inhaling fresh air. We’re locked inside a 5-by-9 cage, eating, shitting, sleeping, and doing whatever else you can do within 45 square feet of living space.
I feel bad complaining about my 45 square feet, because I’m blessed with the luxury of a single cell. Imagine the inmates who must share that confined living space with another human who also eats, shits, snores, and coughs.
When a Shower Comes With a Price
Even when inmates are offered the luxury of a hot shower or a breath of fresh air, the experience can create more tension. One day, not knowing if we’d be on day eight without being offered a shower, I decided to birdbath it and freshen up in my cell. When showers unexpectedly were announced, I declined and attempted to watch some TV. That was sharply disrupted by inmate belongings being tossed from the upper tiers.
Officers were conducting cell searches in the cells of inmates who chose to shower. Extra rolls of one-ply sandpaper toilet tissue, a second pair of state underwear, extra wash rags, sheets, blankets, and clothing were tossed out. Fun-size bars of soap shattered on impact, covering the lower range with confetti-sized soap slivers as single-ply toilet paper unraveled.
Someone familiar with the drug overdose crisis at this prison might think this approach is necessary to curb the problem. But the drug crisis continues.
The Drug Called “Paper”
WCI has a severe problem with substance abuse and contraband. One of the most readily available drugs inside this prison is commonly called “paper”—drug-soaked paper sold in confetti-sized pieces. I first learned about paper during my incarceration, and tend to believe it’s uniquely a prison thing.
I personally watched a prison friend of mine transform from an average “Crazy Joe” into what I could only describe as one of the Walking Dead. I’ll refer to my friend as “Crazy Joe” for privacy reasons. Crazy Joe was in his mid-30s and had been dabbling with paper. His behavior rapidly escalated from minor twitching and talking to himself to something much more serious.
I remember working out in the prison gym with a mutual friend while Crazy Joe sat cross-legged in the center of the gym having an aggressive argument with himself. My workout buddy and I quickly walked over, each picking up Crazy Joe from under one shoulder and carrying him to where we were lifting weights. Crazy Joe remained in his seated position, carrying on his solo argument.
Things only got worse.
One day, as I was returning from an attorney visit, the prison went into lockdown mode, trapping me in the corridor. I saw the “Goon Squad” running toward my cell hall. Approximately 30 minutes later, they wheeled Crazy Joe out, naked and strapped into a restraint chair. He had what people here call an “eppy,” short for episode. What shocked me almost as much as his condition was that other inmates wanted to know who Crazy Joe had purchased his paper from so they could get some.
Crazy Joe eventually became so out of control that he was transferred to a state mental health institution.
Overdoses Behind the Walls
The side effects of paper are unpredictable. I’ve witnessed inmates twitching with white foam coming from their noses and mouths. I’ve seen people convulsing on the ground. Others become completely unresponsive. Some inmates call it “nodding off.” Some don’t wake up.
When someone becomes severely intoxicated or unresponsive, guards in protective gear may be called to restrain him. Once the inmate is restrained, medical staff attempt to evaluate him. Depending on his condition, he may be placed in restrictive housing—the hole—or transported by ambulance for outside medical attention.
Ambulances have become a familiar sight here.
On July 4, 2026, I counted nine ambulances that I believe were connected to drug incidents. The constant emergencies disrupt a prison already operating with staffing shortages.
What exactly is in these drug-soaked, confetti-sized papers? I can’t say for certain. I believe fentanyl is sometimes involved, because I’ve watched Narcan revive people. I’ve also heard reports that testing has identified substances including synthetic cannabinoids and other chemicals. Whatever is in paper, its effects reach far beyond intoxication.
The Mental Health Crisis
The drug crisis, confinement, and constant uncertainty have combined into something darker. The number of inmates I’ve seen cutting themselves has increased dramatically. It’s become disturbingly commonplace to see staff transporting an inmate covered in blood after self-harm. Some injuries are serious enough to require outside hospitalization. At night, cries and suicidal threats sometimes echo through the dark cell halls. As I hear those prolonged, mournful cries, I can make out expressions of grief and pain.
By morning, we may learn what happened. Maybe the inmate overdosed and was taken to the hole. Maybe he made it through the night. Or maybe he didn’t.
I’ll never forget one night when a guard was making his rounds along the narrow catwalk in front of our cells. I got up to look because his footsteps sounded awkward. As the guard passed, I noticed he was leaving a trail of bloody footprints. Hours later, morning count came and went. Eventually, while breakfast trays were being served, an inmate worker followed the bloody footprints. They led to an unresponsive man. A fellow inmate had cut himself so badly that his blood had drained underneath his cell door and onto the catwalk. RIP, fellow inmate.
A Crisis Feeding Another Crisis
Mandatory overtime is an everyday occurrence for many guards here. They’re exhausted, too. Tensions increase when one guard is trying to do the work of several people. Add communication problems, inmates already frustrated by confinement, missed showers, canceled recreation, and constant uncertainty, and horrifying events become more likely.
The prison’s problems don’t exist separately. Staffing shortages contribute to lockdowns. Lockdowns contribute to isolation and anger. The drug crisis produces overdoses and medical emergencies. And underneath all of it is a mental health crisis that continues to grow.
Driving through Wisconsin’s heartland, you’re likely to see whitetail deer grazing in bright green clover fields, flocks of turkeys along the roadside, and herds of black-and-white cows walking toward a milk barn. What you don’t see from the road is what happens behind Waupun’s 30-foot walls. From where I sit, the overdoses, self-harm, isolation, and despair aren’t separate stories. They’re all part of the same one.
