(The Daily Signal) — The Wisconsin Department of Corrections is housing a man who raped his own daughter in a women’s prison because he said he identifies as a woman himself — and the DOC is refusing to offer any kind of insight or explanation on the matter.
Mark Campbell is currently incarcerated in Taycheedah Correctional Institution, a women’s prison in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, inmate records show. He is a registered sex offender convicted of first-degree sexual assault of a child.
That child was his own 10-year-old daughter, court documents allege.
Born in 1971, Campbell is currently 52 years old, weighs 225 pounds, and stands at 5 feet 9 inches, according to the DOC inmate locator.
Under Campbell’s listed “sex,” the Wisconsin DOC states in bold, “FEMALE.” The department has not responded to many requests for comment from The Daily Signal.
Mark Campbell
DOC photographs of Campbell depict him with long brown hair. He appears to be wearing makeup, including large quantities of eyeliner and blush. The DOC does not include former photos of Campbell, but a 2020 news report from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel includes a DOC mugshot of Campbell sans makeup.
Court documents allege that Campbell would sexually assault his daughter while her little brother was home and that “her little brother would sometimes come into the room while the sexual assault was occurring.”
Campbell first requested transgender surgery to attempt to become a woman in 2013, according to a Wisconsin outlet, but the DOC denied his request at the time. In 2016 he filed a lawsuit accusing Department of Corrections officials of being indifferent to his medical needs by not allowing him to get so-called sex change surgery, the publication reported.
The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in 2019 that the DOC officials couldn’t have anticipated that denying such a surgery to Campbell would violate his rights.
However, in December 2020, a federal judge ruled that Wisconsin must offer Campbell taxpayer-funded transition surgery and move him to a women’s prison while awaiting that surgery.
“The rights of transgender persons and sex reassignment surgery remain politically controversial, even outside the prison context,” U.S. District Judge James Peterson said in his ruling at the time. “And some members of the public are outraged at any effort to improve the health and well being of inmates. But the true public interest lies in alleviating needless suffering by those who are dependent on the government for their care.
“I decline to impose any further prerequisites on Campbell’s sex reassignment surgery,” Peterson added, using female pronouns for the inmate: “She has waited long enough.”
The DOC housed Campbell in men’s prisons until August 2022, according to the inmate locator. In August 2022, authorities moved him to Taycheedah Correctional Institution, which “provides female inmates with a safe and secure environment that is gender-responsive,” according to the prison’s website.
Republican Wisconsin state Rep. Janel Brandtjen told The Daily Signal in a phone interview that she finds it “outrageous” that taxpayers were likely forced to pay for Campbell’s transition, calling Campbell’s placement an “injustice” to the female members of the facility.
“It’s incomprehensible that this is where we are in the justice system, that deviants now get to pretend they are a different sex so they can manipulate women within the women’s prison,” said Brandtjen, a member of the state Corrections committee. “And we’ve seen this happen in the U.K. and other facilities.
“It really does leave you at a loss for words,” she said. “It’s disgusting.”
“As legislators, we will pursue every option that we can to have our female inmates safe and to stop this horrendous misuse of taxpayer money and abuse of the justice system,” the Wisconsin state legislator added.
Over half of trans-identifying prisoners committed sex crimes
Since Aug. 21, Wisconsin DOC Deputy Director of Communications Kevin Hoffman has failed to provide The Daily Signal with information on Campbell’s whereabouts or on how many biologically male inmates are housed in female prisons.
Guidance from the DOC dated April 2018 states that “inmates may self-identify as transgender or intersex at intake or at any other time during an incarceration” and that “all sites are approved for transgender and intersex inmates” except six facilities: Prairie du Chien Correctional Institution, Gordon Correctional Center, McNaughton Correctional Center, Chippewa Valley Correctional Treatment Facility, Flambeau Correctional Center, and St. Croix Correctional Center.
“Facility and housing assignments shall be made on a case-by-case basis, considering the inmate’s health and safety as well as potential programming, management and security concerns,” the guidance notes. “An inmate’s own views regarding safety shall be given careful consideration.”
If an inmate has undergone an attempted transgender transition surgery, that inmate will likely be placed in a facility consistent with the “reassignment treatment,” the guidance states. In other words, if a man undergoes attempted sex-change surgery to look like a woman, he will be housed with women.
“For the purposes of facility placement, self-inflicted genital mutilation does not constitute sexual reassignment surgery and does not qualify an inmate for placement in a different facility.”
The Daily Signal previously reported that a little more than half of the men housed in Wisconsin Department of Corrections facilities who identify as transgender women have been convicted of at least one count of sexual assault or sexual abuse.
The revelation comes from records obtained by The Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project through an April 2022 public records request. The Oversight Project sought information on biologically male inmates seeking transfers to female prisons by saying they identified as transgender females. (The Daily Signal is the news outlet of The Heritage Foundation.)
Of the 161 biological men who are housed in Wisconsin Department of Corrections facilities who self-reported as transgender, 81 (50.3%) have been convicted of at least one count of sexual assault or sexual abuse as of late July. The prisoners may have been convicted of additional offenses for their current incarceration periods that are not sex offenses, the Wisconsin Department of Corrections noted.
Inmates convicted of sex offenses may have committed crimes including sexual exploitation of a child, sexual exploitation by a therapist, forced viewing of a sexual act, rape, sexual intercourse without consent, incest, sexual intercourse with a child, indecent behavior with a child, enticing a child, and more.
This isn’t the first story of its kind. The Daily Caller News Foundation reported in April 2021 that a two-time baby killer had requested to be transferred to a women’s prison where his baby mama was housed. Forty-six-year-old Jessica M. Hann, formerly known as Jason Michael Hann, underwent a state-funded gender transition before transferring to the Central California Women’s Facility under the name “Jessica.”
He is currently housed there on death row, inmate records show.
Strip searches by biological men?
Wisconsin state Rep. Ty Bodden introduced legislation earlier this year that would require people conducting strip searches on a prisoner to be the same sex as the prisoner unless that search is conducted “due to exigent circumstances.”
That legislation defines sex as “a person’s sex at birth, as being male or female, according to distinct reproductive roles as manifested by sex and reproductive organ anatomy, chromosomal makeup, and endogenous hormone profiles.”
Bodden told The Daily Signal that the inspiration for the bill traces back to his experience working in the Wisconsin DOC, where he observed guards who were in the process of attempting to transition to another gender performing strip searches on members of the opposite sex.
Such searches are very thorough and invasive. Bodden’s legislation defines strip search as “a search in which a probationer’s genitals, pubic area, buttock, or anus, or a female probationer’s breast, is uncovered and either is exposed to view or is touched by a person conducting the search.”
“Unless exigent circumstances require an immediate search, no person may conduct a strip search on a probationer subject to this subsection unless the person conducting the strip search is of the same sex,” the legislation says.
“It is unfortunate that we need to define ‘sex’ in statute when it comes to inmate placement and inmate strip searches,” Bodden told The Daily Signal. “Biological men should not conduct strip searches on women, and biological men should not be housed with female inmates, and vice versa. This is common sense.”
The DOC did not immediately address The Daily Signal’s request for comment about men who identify as women performing strip searches on female prison inmates.
Mary Margaret Olohan
Mary Margaret Olohan is a reporter for The Daily Signal.
