Self-Advocacy Guide: Exhausting Administrative Remedies in Correctional Facilities

A federal law, called the “Prison Litigation Reform Act” (PLRA), controls inmates’ ability to sue about prison conditions. You can’t take your case to court until you go through the prison’s internal complaint process. This is called “exhausting your administrative remedies.”

This resource is meant to be a general guide for people with disabilities. It is not legal advice. For legal advice on your specific situation, please talk with a lawyer.

Step 1: Write your complaint and send it to the Institution Complaint Examiner (ICE)

You must send your complaint under your legal name, with your signature. You can only talk about one issue per complaint, and it should be an issue that personally affects you.

Here are some tips to help write your complaint:

• Don’t talk about an issue you already talked about in past complaints

• Give enough facts to support a decision

• Give a timeline and list the DOC staff involved, if you can

• Don’t use obscene or threatening language

After you write it, send your complaint to the Institution Complaint Examiner (ICE). You can only file 2 complaints per week, unless the complaint raises “health and safety issues.”

Step 2: ICE Review

After the ICE reviews your complaint, they may:

• Return your complaint to you. You can correct problems in the complaint and send it again.

• Reject your complaint. If this happens, you can appeal to the Appropriate Reviewing Authority (ARA).

• Require you to try to resolve the issue. The ICE may require you to contact the staff person to try and find a solution. You can give proof (request slips, etc.) that you tried to do this.

• Process your complaint. The ICE may look into your complaint and recommend a decision. They give their recommendation to the ARA, who makes the actual decision.

Step 3: Appropriate Reviewing Authority (ARA) Decision

The ARA makes the actual decision after reviewing the ICE’s recommendations. Here are the different decisions the ARA could make:

• They could affirm (approve) your complaint or affirm it with some changes

• They could dismiss (deny) your complaint or dismiss it with some changes

• They could return your complaint to the ICE for more investigation

Step 4: Filing an Appeal

If you don’t like the ARA’s decision, you must appeal it to exhaust your administrative remedies. To appeal, you must send a written request for the Corrections Complaint Examiner (CCE) to review the decision.

Steps 5 and 6: Decision by Corrections Complaint Examiner (CCE) and the Secretary

The Secretary can:

• Take the CCE’s recommendations and use them for the final decision

• Accept a changed version of the CCE’s recommendations

• Reject the CCE's recommendations and make a different decision

• Return the appeal to the CCE to investigate more

Step 7 (optional): Contact Disability Rights Wisconsin

If you go through all these steps and don’t like the Secretary’s decision, please contact DRW to discuss your grievance and to see if we can represent you going forward. You can call us at 800-928-8778 or write to us here:

Attn: Intake Team
Disability Rights Wisconsin
1502 W. Broadway, Suite 201
Monona, WI 53713

DOJ Complaint Option

At any time during this process, you have the option to make a civil rights complaint with the U.S. Department of Justice. You may send a U.S. Department of Justice complaint directly to:

U.S. Department of Justice 
Civil Rights Division 
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW 
Washington, DC 20530 
(202) 514-3847 
(855) 856-1247

Or use the online form.