Members of inmate-rights organizations gathered Thursday in Bayport to demand input into the Minnesota Department of Corrections’ plan to shutter the Stillwater prison by 2029.
Among their demands: No new prisons. No double-bunking. Permission for those serving life sentences to remain at Stillwater through the end of the year. Full implementation of the 2023 Minnesota Rehabilitation & Reinvestment Act before transferring any inmate (MRRA allows qualified inmates a chance to shave an additional 17 percent off their sentences).
“This move is too big of a move to happen without the input of greater, wider community input, specifically, justice-impacted people who have served time in Stillwater,” said Antonio Williams, the co-executive director of T.O.N.E. U.P. Inc., an organization that helps people leaving incarceration. “(These) demands must be included during this transition.”
About 1,200 men are housed in the Minnesota Correctional Facility-Stillwater, which is located in Bayport.
Among them is Cornelius Jackson, who is serving life in prison without the possibility of release after being found guilty in 2006 of aiding and abetting first-degree murder.
“We’re here today not just because Stillwater is closing, we’re here because real lives are being uprooted and disrupted,” Alissa Washington, Jackson’s fiancée, told the small crowd gathered at Lakeside Park, just a mile south of the prison. “People who have been in this facility for decades are now being moved like baggage. Let me be very clear: this transition is happening, so it must be done with care, accountability and dignity.”
Special care must be taken with the inmates’ personal property, including photos, legal documents, clothing and books, said Washington, founder of Wrongfully Incarcerated and Over-Sentenced Families Council-MN. “And when (personal property) arrives at the new facility, it must be accepted, regardless of a different warden’s rules,” she said. “It’s not right to force someone to repurchase clothes or essentials just because the rules changed from one prison to another. That’s cruelty, not policy.”
Zero double-bunking is the preference, but if bunking must happen, inmates “must have the right to choose their cellmate,” Washington said. “It is reckless and dangerous to place someone from the Aryan Nation in a cell with a practicing Muslim. That’s not just bad policy, it’s how you get people hurt or killed, and we’re not going to stand by and allow that.
“This transition should not create new trauma,” she said. “It should not result in violence, lost property, or emotional harm. These are not numbers, they are people — people who we love who are surviving in cages.”
Phased closure
State leaders last week agreed to a “phased closure” of the Stillwater prison, citing safety and costly maintenance concerns at the facility, which was built in 1914.
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Corrections Commissioner Paul Schnell said the closure would end state investments in an aging facility and eliminate safety concerns at the prison for both staff and inmates. The closure is expected to be completed in two phases upon passage of the public-safety omnibus bill at the Legislature.
The first phase involves reducing operations and staffing over several months, moving inmates to other prisons, and conducting studies on logistics, closure impacts and the site’s long-term future, corrections officials said. During the second phase, which is slated to begin in July 2027, the site will be vacated. Full closure is expected by June 30, 2029.
Unions representing correction officers and staff at Stillwater have called for a halt to the plan, calling the budget agreement that includes the closure “shortsighted, downright dangerous, disruptive and deeply disrespectful to the workers that keep the community safe and the inmates safe.”
A corrections spokeswoman said the organizers of Thursday’s press conference had not reached out to Schnell to offer their suggestions, but that he would be open to “gaining their perspectives and insights” and planned to connect with them to schedule a meeting.
In response to a question about whether corrections would adopt the safety protocols for the transition proposed by the inmate-rights groups, Shannon Loehrke, the agency’s director of communications, said officials were not prepared to discuss them at this time.
“Safety and security are always primary considerations” in the Department of Corrections, she said.
Minnesota Rehabilitation & Reinvestment Act
Loehrke said the phased closure of the Stillwater facility is “entirely separate” from the implementation of the Minnesota Rehabilitation & Reinvestment Act, which she said is in the “very early implementation stage” with pilots at the prisons in Shakopee and Moose Lake.
“The department is keenly focused on successful implementation of MRRA policies, and we will not compromise effective intervention efforts,” she said.
A long-term plan for rehabilitating or replacing the Stillwater and St. Cloud prison was recommended in 2020 by the Office of the Legislative Auditor in a report titled “Safety in State Correctional Facilities,” Loehrke said.
“The phased closure of Stillwater is regarded as a step in the direction recommended by the OLA,” she said. “As the phased closure plan is implemented, the DOC needs to ensure that the state has modern, safe and secure correctional facility capacity to serve the long-term needs of Minnesota’s criminal-justice system.”
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Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1986, the Stillwater State Prison Historic District in Bayport includes the original walled compound designed by architect Clarence H. Johnston Sr., and constructed in 1910-1914, along with its associated staff housing area. DOC officials said Thursday that there will be a decommissioning study to figure out possible future uses for the correctional facility and site, which sits on about 180 acres.
The study will explore options for decommissioning and vacating the facility’s physical and security infrastructure, analysis of requirements for buildings on the National Register of Historic Places and examination of development opportunities for the site, Loehrke said.
DOC officials reached out to Bayport officials last week after the announcement of the closure was made, Bayport Mayor Michele Hanson said.
“At this point, it’s too early for us to have any comment other than we hope that everything transitions smoothly and that we’re involved in the process as to what happens with the site,” she said.
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