Inmate advocates demand input ahead of Stillwater prison shutdown
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The Minnesota state Legislature passed a bill this year that will close the Minnesota Department of Corrections Facility in Stillwater by 2029. Nearly 1,200 inmates are housed there.
T.O.N.E. U.P. Inc., an organization that helps people leaving incarceration, said they want a current inmate and former inmate-led coalition to be established as part of the transition planning.
“What you see is the beginning of a coalition, a team of justice-impacted people who say no more choices that are impacting our lives, without our voices, without our input and we have input to mitigate violence, mitigate things that are going to happen that no one understands because they have not been in those walls,” Antonio Williams, the executive said at news conference.
Williams and others have several demands of the transition including a commitment from the Minnesota Department of Corrections that closing Stillwater will not lead to the construction of any new prisons.
They also want transition safety protocols. Williams said the concerns of incarcerated people need to be paramount as the transition takes place.
“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,” he said.
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