Table of contents
WISCONSIN JUSTICE & REENTRY
PART 4
People talk about prison like the building decides who you are.
Inside Wisconsin, a score decided which building you end up in to begin with.
The Division of Adult Institutions (DAI) classifies people with a point-based instrument. Age, criminal history, and the current conviction add points automatically. Cutoffs then sort you into maximum, medium, secured minimum, or the work-release lane.[1][2][4] A job is what knocks points off. Calendar time by itself does not.
Part 1 mapped the whole machine. Part 2 showed how bed pressure moves through the system without solving it. Part 3 is PG coming home after ten years. This part is the sorter he lived under on the way there.
Direct Answer
Wisconsin DAI uses a centralized Bureau of Offender Classification and Movement (BOCM) process, and the current custody instrument is a point score. The public code lists the factors. The instrument assigns the numbers. DAI rolled out the Instrument for Custody Classification (IFCC) in late 2023 to replace the older Risk Rating Tool. Falcon’s 2025 review describes IFCC as four point-based scoring tools (male and female, initial and reclassification) that recommend a custody level, with mandatory restrictors and discretionary overrides still attached.[1][2]
Wisconsin Administrative Code ch. DOC 302 names what those scores are allowed to weigh: the nature and number of offenses, criminal and juvenile history, age, sentence structure, adjustment and escape history, program performance, detainers, medical and clinical status, and the results of the classification instruments themselves.[4] Work or study release still requires community custody and a minimum-security facility on paper.[5] ERP has its own public suitability rules: court eligibility plus DOC deciding whether someone is “suitable,” including custody level and time left.[10]
DAI doesn’t publish the scoring table. The code lists the ingredients. The sheet does the math.
This means a low-level new case doesn’t wipe a long record. The points from who you already were can put you at maximum before anyone asks how you behaved once you got there.
None of the operational bands in this essay come from a table DAI handed me. They were relayed by people who have lived the sheet, including PG, who was in a secured minimum when they brought the point system in. I’m not pretending that memory is a photocopy of the unpublished IFCC key. It is the sheet as people inside actually meet it.
When I was incarcerated, there was no visibility into custody-level recommendations. You got a decision. You didn’t get the math. A score people can actually see is a real improvement. At least someone can understand why they are sitting at the level they are sitting at.
The score is the sorter
You walk in with points.
Age is automatic. Young people get a lot of points. The load lessens as you get older, and it never quite goes to zero. Even older ages still get points for age. Neither PG nor I have the unpublished bracket sheet. We don’t need it to see the slope.
That slope is backwards. I’ve met old-school guys who still make trouble as a habit. I’ve also met young guys who made a bad decision and were otherwise kids who belonged in a minimum. The instrument doesn’t ask which one you are. It asks how old you are, then it charges you for it.
Criminal history goes back ten years. Each conviction counts, even if you already finished probation. Misdemeanors count. They also pull county jail records for infractions and hole time. The sheet is not only looking at the judgment of conviction in front of the judge. It is looking at how county jail already treated you.
PG wasn’t sure what starts the ten-year clock: the conviction date, or the date the sentence actually ends. That is not a small difference. A conviction-date window lets a case age off the sheet while you are still on paper. A completion window keeps it live until probation, parole, or extended supervision is done, then ten years after that. Wisconsin runs on confinement plus supervision. My guess is they count to the end of the sentence, paper included. I can’t prove that from a table DAI will not publish. If I’m right, old cases stay expensive longer than the year on the judgment.
The current case stacks on top of that. Severity matters. PG’s version of the sheet put about 8 to 10 points on each felony charge in the current case. A “small” new felony is not small arithmetic.
Then the total maps to a custody level. Time left on the sentence and program needs decide which door you are even allowed to knock on. The points decide whether the door is real.
| Score | Where it puts you |
|---|---|
| 20 and over | Maximum |
| 11-19 | Medium |
| 6-10 | Secured minimum |
| 5 or less | Work-release consideration, if time and program needs also fit |
| 4 or less | Earned Release Program consideration, on top of court eligibility and DOC suitability |
Work release is not only a point number. PG’s version also required two years or less left, or three years with no program needs, and 5 points or less. They can override 6–9 points if every program need is done. It happens. It is rare.
ERP sits even lower: 4 points and under, plus the public suitability screen the department already publishes.[10]
If I caught a low-level felony tomorrow, that sheet would not care that the new crime looked small. I’m 37. Age still scores. I’ve got seven felonies. Anything still inside that ten-year window counts, finished probation or not, and the window may run from when the paper actually ended, not from the conviction year. A new felony charge is 8 to 10 points by itself. Jail infractions and hole time can add more. That is how you land at 20 and walk into maximum without the new case looking like maximum on the paperwork.
That is the part outsiders miss. Classification is sold as an individualized risk decision. For a lot of people, the individualized part is already over before the hearing starts.
flowchart TD
A["What you walk in with<br/>Age, 10-year record, current felony"] --> B["Point total<br/>BOCM / IFCC"]
C["Jobs and programs<br/>1 point per working quarter"] --> B
D["Tickets, restrictors, beds<br/>Major tickets end grandfathering"] --> B
B --> E["20+ Maximum"]
B --> F["11-19 Medium"]
B --> G["6-10 Secured minimum"]
B --> H["5 or less Work release<br/>4 or less ERP"]
style A fill:#f5f0e8,stroke:#b89758,stroke-width:1px,color:#222
style C fill:#f5f0e8,stroke:#b89758,stroke-width:1px,color:#222
style D fill:#f5f0e8,stroke:#b89758,stroke-width:1px,color:#222
style B fill:#fdf5e6,stroke:#b89758,stroke-width:2px,color:#222
style E fill:#fdf5e6,stroke:#b89758,stroke-width:2px,color:#222
style F fill:#fdf5e6,stroke:#b89758,stroke-width:2px,color:#222
style G fill:#fdf5e6,stroke:#b89758,stroke-width:2px,color:#222
style H fill:#f0f8f5,stroke:#5cb85c,stroke-width:2px,color:#222
What the public code will admit
DOC 302 is not empty. It is just incomplete on purpose.
Custody classification is supposed to match a person to how closely they must be monitored, and to which institutions can hold them. Maximum, medium, and minimum describe monitoring inside. Community custody is the classification used for work or study release and other limited community activity.[4][5] A person’s custody is supposed to be no higher than the security level of the institution that holds them, with limited exceptions.[4]
BOCM staff at intake evaluate security risk, program needs, sentence structure, and bed space, then assign a facility.[1] A classification specialist recommends custody, programs, and placement. A director decides. The inmate gets a written copy. Reviews come at least every twelve months.[4]
Read that procedure and it sounds like judgment. Then read DOC 302.11(18): the department may consider “the results of assessments or instruments developed to assist with the assignment of custody classification.”[4] That sentence is the hook for the score sheet. The 2018 rewrite also put age on the factor list in so many words, along with criminal record, the nature and number of offenses, escape history, security-threat-group activity, program performance or refusal, detainers, and medical and mental-health status.[4][7]
So the public story is not “we guess.” The public story is “we have factors, and we have an instrument.” The missing page is the one that would let a family recalculate the score at the kitchen table.
Wisconsin has been through more than one version of that missing page. In the 1980s it used an additive NIC point system, then moved to a high / moderate / low Risk Rating Tool after courts knocked an earlier “Inmate Custody Rating” form for using numeric cutoffs the code did not list.[8][9] NIC later found that older system overclassified a lot of people and used overrides at a high rate.[8] Falcon says IFCC, launched December 11, 2023, was built to put the scoring back on a point instrument, cut down on loose discretion, and score men and women on separate tools.[2]
The form changed. The logic did not. You are still being numbered.
A 2025 Court of Appeals order treated a mandatory restrictor inside IFCC as internal management, not a public rule the department had to promulgate.[6] That is why you can read DOC 302 all afternoon and still not reconstruct the napkin math. The state will tell you the factors. It won’t hand you the scoring key.
Jobs knock points off. Time does not.
People who haven’t lived the new sheet often assume time knocks points off by itself: sit still, wait a year, drop a couple. PG did not see it that way. Points did not just drop off over time. A job knocked off 1 point per quarter. Schooling and vocational programs could knock off a point or two. That was the path.
Then the bind closes. Jobs were the main way to lower the score, so jobs were never sitting there waiting. Programming is still short on staff. PG’s line was simple: they need social workers, and they don’t have them.
You can sit still and stay at 20. You can wait for a work assignment that exists because it is the only way down, which is why it is scarce. That is not a motivation speech. It is a rationing system.
Guards know the math too. PG said they pay attention to who is on the borderline and look for reasons to write tickets for people already on their list. A major ticket is not only punishment. It is a reclass trigger.
PG lived that from the other side of a grandfather clause. He had already been in a secured minimum for a year when they introduced the point system. His score put him back at medium. Because he was already there, they let him stay. Anyone grandfathered who caught a major ticket got reclassified. The override that kept him in the lower bed was not mercy as a policy. It was inertia, with a tripwire.
Restrictors, overrides, and the bed that ignores the score
Points are not the only lock.
IFCC also uses mandatory restrictors: bars that keep people out of minimum and community custody even if the arithmetic might have gone another way. The Court of Appeals described one of them in 2025: a life-sentence restrictor that keeps a person off minimum and community custody until extended-supervision eligibility, unless the sentencing court has signaled upcoming release.[6] Escape history, unfinished sex-offender treatment, and similar policy bars work the same way. The score can look movable. The restrictor is not.
Overrides exist too. Work release at 6–9 points if programs are done is the version PG named. Rare. The override you hear about more often is the one that keeps you up, not the one that lets you down.
Beds do the same job without calling it an override. Falcon found people classified medium sitting in maximum institutions because the medium bunks were gone, and staff reported more than a thousand people waiting on reclassification movement because medium and minimum beds were not there.[2] The instrument can recommend a lower level. The system can still park you higher until a bed appears.
That is why “just do your time and drop custody” is a speech, not a path. The calendar only helps if a job, a program seat, the restrictors, and an empty bunk all move in the same direction.
Work release is a second gate, not a prize for surviving
Community custody is the paperwork name for the lowest monitoring level. DOC 324.04 is blunt: to apply for work or study release, you have to live in a minimum-security facility and already have community custody.[5]
On the sheet PG learned, that translated to 5 points or less, plus two years or less, or three years with no program needs. Four points and under opened ERP consideration. A 6–9 override existed on paper for people who had finished their programs. He did not describe it as a plan you could count on.
Even that is not a job. Wisconsin Watch reported in December 2025 that 2,778 people statewide held the lowest custody level, and DOC could only manually count 781 work-release jobs in July 2024. At Winnebago, 224 of 295 people had the custody status required for work release, and 67 had the jobs.[3]
So the points can keep you out. Then the job count can keep you out again. Programming needs can freeze you in between, which is the bind I hit at Fox Lake when time left on the clock and waitlists collided. That waitlist story belongs in a later part of this series. The classification point here is simpler: a short sentence does not punch a hole in a high score, and a low score does not guarantee a work-release bed.
You get punished if you are young, because youth is a pile of points before anyone asks what kind of kid you were. You still get punished if you are old, because age never quite goes to zero, even when the old-school guy in the next bunk is the one running the unit. You get punished if you have a stack of old cases in that ten-year window, even the petty ones, even the ones you already finished on paper. You get punished on the current offense, 8 to 10 points per felony charge. Then the system still gets to say no after the math finally looks right, because the job that would knock the next point off is the same job everyone else needs.
What this is not
This is not a claim that every person in maximum is there by accident.
It is not a claim that DAI should ignore violence, escape, or a true public-safety risk.
It is not a retell of Wisconsin’s first-year cliff, AB 85 charge rules, or the full Fox Lake waitlist case. Those gears have their own parts. ERP funding belongs in a later essay. This part only needs the point door that sits in front of it.
It is also not the model for how custody determination should work. Visibility is progress. The scoring is still a highly flawed system, and it should be redesigned. That rebuild is a later essay. This one is the sheet as it actually runs.
Wisconsin built a centralized classification bureau so custody would not be a random hallway decision.[1] A point instrument is more consistent than a vibe. It is also a machine that can lock a person into maximum on biography: age, a ten-year pile of old cases, and whatever they just got convicted of, while the only reliable way down is a job that was never available.
If you want to understand Wisconsin prisons without slogans, watch the points.
Watch what you walk in with.
Watch who gets to work it off.
Watch how many people finally score low enough for work release and still leave without ever walking out to a job.
Surveillance is already in this series. Flock cameras in Wisconsin is the town-by-town vote. Flock, Axon, and Motorola are still the same industry is what stays if you only swap the logo. The next essays in Wisconsin Justice & Reentry keep following the pressure: county contract beds, waitlists, the first-year cliff, and the funding choice between more custody and earlier alternatives.
If the points already have you at max before you walk in, a good year or two still wouldn’t get you there. You need an institution job that never opens.
Frequently asked questions
Does Wisconsin DAI use a point score for custody?
Yes. DAI’s current Instrument for Custody Classification is a point-based scoring system that recommends a custody level. The public administrative code lists the factors. DAI hasn’t published the scoring table itself.[2][4] The operational bands in this essay were relayed by people who have lived the sheet, including PG: 20 and over maximum, 11-19 medium, 6-10 secured minimum, 5 or less for work-release consideration, 4 or less for ERP consideration.
What adds custody points?
DOC 302 lets the department weigh age, criminal and juvenile history, the nature and number of current offenses, sentence structure, escape and adjustment history, program performance, detainers, and clinical needs, plus the instrument score.[4] On the sheet as PG learned it, young people get a lot of age points and older people still get some, the last ten years of cases count even after probation is finished (PG wasn’t sure if that clock starts at conviction or at the end of the sentence, paper included), county jail infractions and hole time count, and a current felony charge is about 8 to 10 points.
How do you knock points off?
Not by sitting still. PG did not see points drop off with calendar time alone. A job knocked off 1 point per working quarter. School and vocational programming could knock off a point or two. Jobs were scarce because they were the main way down.
How many points do you need for work release?
The published rule is a custody level, not a point cutoff. Work or study release requires community custody and a minimum-security facility.[5] On the operational sheet: 5 points or less, plus two years or less left, or three years with no program needs. A 6–9 override exists if programs are done. It is rare. A low score still does not guarantee a job. Wisconsin Watch found far more people at the lowest custody level than work-release placements.[3]
Can DAI override the score?
Yes. IFCC includes discretionary overrides and mandatory restrictors that can bar minimum or community custody regardless of the arithmetic.[2][6] PG also described grandfathering: people already in a secured minimum when the point system arrived could stay even if they scored medium, until a major ticket. Bed shortages can also keep a person housed above the custody level the instrument recommended.[2]
Why does age count if it is not a crime?
Because the instrument treats age as risk. DOC 302 lists age as a classification factor.[4] Young people get hit hardest. The points lessen as you age, and they don’t go away. That treats a birthday like a custody fact. It does not ask whether you are the kid who made one bad decision or the old-school guy who still makes trouble.
References
- Wisconsin Department of Corrections, Division of Adult Institutions. “Bureau of Offender Classification and Movement.” https://doc.wi.gov/Pages/AboutDOC/AdultInstitutions/BureauofClassificationandMovement.aspx
- Falcon Team. Wisconsin Department of Corrections Comprehensive Review (2025), including IFCC as a point-based custody instrument launched December 11, 2023, mandatory restrictors and overrides, and people housed above classified custody because of bed pressure. https://doc.wi.gov/Documents/AboutDOC/WIDOCFalconReport2025.pdf
- Phoebe Petrovic. “Wisconsin corrections officials don’t track how many prisoners participate in work release.” Wisconsin Watch, Dec. 17, 2025. https://wisconsinwatch.org/2025/12/wisconsin-corrections-prison-work-release-jobs-employers-minimum-security/
- Wisconsin Administrative Code ch. DOC 302 (Inmate Classification, Sentence, and Release Provisions), especially DOC 302.09 (custody levels), DOC 302.11 (factors, including age, criminal record, current offenses, and classification instruments), and classification procedure. https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/code/admin_code/doc/302
- Wisconsin Administrative Code DOC 324.04 (work or study release requires a minimum-security facility and community custody). https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/code/admin_code/doc/324
- Socha v. Carr, Wis. Ct. App. No. 2024AP336 (Aug. 26, 2025) (summary disposition) (IFCC mandatory restrictor treated as internal management, not a promulgated rule). https://www.wicourts.gov/ca/opinion/DisplayDocument.pdf?content=pdf&seqNo=999800
- Wisconsin Department of Corrections. Public hearing notice for DOC 302 revisions (adding age and related classification factors). https://doc.wi.gov/Documents/AboutDOC/PublicNotices/170926HearingNotice.pdf
- Hardyman, Austin, et al. Revalidating External Prison Classification Systems: The Experience of Ten States and Model for Classification Reform. National Institute of Corrections / NCCD. Wisconsin chapter: earlier additive point system, then Risk Rating Tool; overclassification and high override rates. https://www.prearesourcecenter.org/sites/default/files/library/revalidatingexternalprisonclassificationsystems.pdf
- Wisconsin Department of Health and Social Services. Clearinghouse Rule 89-19: after Richards v. Traut, the department described its earlier Inmate Custody Rating form as a numerical score sheet whose cutoffs were not listed in the administrative code. https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/code/register/1989/404b/rules/cr_89_19.pdf
- Wisconsin Department of Corrections. “Earned Release Program FAQs” (November 2023): court eligibility plus DAI suitability, including custody classification and time to release. https://doc.wi.gov/Documents/TownHalls/FAQs/Earned%20Release%20Program%20FAQs%20-%20November%202023.pdf