Dodge Correctional Institution

This article is about the prison in Wisconsin. For the prison in Georgia, see Dodge State Prison.

Dodge Correctional Institution (DCI) is an adult male maximum-security correctional facility operated by the Wisconsin Department of Corrections Division of Adult Institutions in Waupun, Wisconsin, US. The facility was converted from the Central State Hospital for the Criminally Insane to an adult correctional facility in 1977 at a cost of $2.47 million of general obligation bonds,^{[clarification needed]} as authorized by Chapter 29 of the Laws of 1977. The first two inmates were transferred from the nearby Waupun Correctional Institution to DCI on May 15, 1978. On October 29, 1993, ground was broken for a $45 million expansion which more than doubled the size of the facility. On June 17, 1996, the first female prisoner was admitted to DCI making it the only reception center for both male and female adult felons committed to the Wisconsin Department of Corrections. DCI served as the reception center for both male and female inmates until December 1, 2004, when the female reception center moved to the Taycheedah Correctional Institution. DCI also serves as the central medical center for the division, providing both in-patient and out-patient care for male and female inmates.^[3]

Dodge Correctional Institution

Entrance to the facility
Location	Waupun, Wisconsin, US
Status	Operational
Security class	Maximum
Capacity	1,165 males (operating)
Population	1,597 males (as of FY 2023[1])
Opened	1978
Former name	Central State Hospital for the Criminally Insane
Managed by	Wisconsin Department of Corrections Division of Adult Institutions
Warden	Jason Benzel[2]

Notable current and former inmates

Inmate Name	DOC Number	Status	Details
Brian M. Cooper	00618676	Serving a life sentence.[4]	Convicted in the 2012 murder of Alisha Bromfield and her unborn child.[5][6][7]

• Jeffrey Dahmer - Longtime serial killer located in Milwaukee, WI spent less than a day of his sentence here on September 3, 1991 before being transferred to Columbia Correctional Institution.
• Steven Avery – convicted murderer, subject of Netflix documentary, Making a Murderer.^[8]
• Ed Gein – murderer, grave robber, incarcerated when the institution was Central State Hospital.^[9]
• Jake Patterson – murderer and kidnapper, since relocated to a New Mexico prison.^[10]
• John Schrank – attempted assassin of Theodore Roosevelt was at Central State Hospital and died there.^[11]
• Chai Vang, convicted of murdering six people, since relocated to Iowa State Penitentiary.^[12]
• Chris Watts – perpetrator of the Watts family murders, relocated from Colorado Department of Corrections.^[13]
• Chandler Halderson, convicted of murdering and dismembering his parents.^[14]
• Darrell Brooks Jr. – Perpetrator of the Waukesha Christmas parade attack, in which he murdered six people and injured sixty-two others. Relocated to the Wisconsin Secure Program Facility in Boscobel, Wisconsin to continue serving his sentence, in February 2024.