Wisconsin taxpayers are paying nearly $12,000 more to house each inmate in 2025 than they did four years earlier, according to figures provided by the state of Wisconsin.
The state said Monday the cost to house each of its 22,254 inmates in 2025 had reached $56,200, which compares to the $44,400 it cost to house each of 19,975 inmates in 2021.
The inmate population figures are year-end totals.
In 2025, Gov. Tony Evers proposed a corrections reform plan to modernize the state’s prisons and stabilize the state’s prison population, but the Republican controlled Legislature has not acted on the plan.
