‘We grew up together’: As Stillwater prison closes, prisoners feel conflicted
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The state is closing the 111-year-old prison near Stillwater. Officials say the building is outdated, dangerous and falling apart, but some men who have spent decades incarcerated there say they have mixed feelings about the decision.
A 2020 report by the Office of the Legislative Auditor described countless safety hazards at the prison, including an outdated layout that requires more corrections officers to keep an eye on the incarcerated population.
The prison, officially named the Minnesota Correctional Facility-Stillwater and located in nearby Bayport, has long rows of cells stacked several stories high. “It is almost impossible for officers based in a central location to see or hear what is occurring in cells far out to the side or high over their heads,” the report said, putting both prisoners and staff at risk.
The prison is also sweltering in the summer. The cell blocks don’t have air conditioning and men can be locked for most of the day in cells with heat indexes topping 110 degrees, according to the Department of Corrections. The state estimates rehabilitating the prison would cost almost $200 million and replacing it more than $1 billion — more than the department’s entire annual budget.
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It can be easy to picture Stillwater prison, especially during hot summers, as a hellish place. But it’s a “close custody,” or higher security, facility meant for long sentences. It’s a place where men sentenced to decades or life in prison have spent their lives — growing up and dying behind its walls.
When Tony Burgess became eligible to transfer to a newer and lower security prison, he didn’t want to leave Stillwater, he said.
“It’s a better place to do time. And people in prison know that,” Burgess said.
Corrections staff can delay prisoner transfers to other facilities so they can finish treatment and educational programming. Burgess said that’s one reason he signed up for classes like writing, choir and art.
“I joined every program I possibly could to stay in Stillwater,” he said.
Burgess said at Stillwater he developed friendships, earned degrees and built a career. But he said one thing above all made it preferable to other prisons, even in the heat of summer: He didn’t have to share a cell.
Each of the 11 state prisons in Minnesota operates a little differently. Stillwater and Oak Park Heights, the highest security prison in the state, are the only facilities that don’t require anyone to share a cell. The youth prison, women’s prison and seven other men’s prisons all require at least some people to share living space.
Burgess served almost 25 years in prison starting when he was 21, mostly at Stillwater, for aggravated robbery and second-degree murder convictions. He was able to get his GED, then his associate’s degree and finally his bachelor’s degree. He said his classes not only helped him avoid transfer, but also gave him life skills and kept him out of “drama.”
Burgess ultimately spent the last year of his incarceration at Faribault prison, where he did have to share a cell. He said it was like living with “another human being in a closet,” with only a few feet of space and a shared toilet in full view.
After Burgess was released in 2024, he got a good-paying job as a licensed plumber installing water heaters. Burgess said his 15 years of plumbing experience at Stillwater made that possible.
‘I built my life there’
A series of events preceded the state’s decision to close Stillwater. In 2018 a corrections officer was beaten to death by a prisoner in the metal workshop. In 2023, about 100 men refused to go back to their cells for lockdown after days of high temperatures made the cells unbearable.
Then, a 2024 state report published by the Ombuds of Corrections described Minnesota’s “crumbling” correctional facilities, and said: “Updating infrastructure at MCF-Stillwater, while urgently needed, is in many ways the epitome of throwing good money after bad.”
Corrections commissioner Paul Schnell said he doesn’t want to “diminish the fact that [Stillwater] has been home, so to speak, for a good number of people.” However, he said closing Stillwater “is an important step forward, and I think will lead to really important and necessary conversations about what Minnesota's correction system should look like.”
Until Stillwater’s closure, about 300 men from across the prison system have been selected to live there in so-called “Earned Living Units” with extra privileges and access to programs. More than 800 applied for the program, according to the department. The prison has the capacity to hold 1,484 men.
Zeke Caligiuri said Stillwater became like his “neighborhood” after he was convicted of aggravated robbery and second-degree murder at 22 years old. He and Burgess were involved in the same crimes.
Caligiuri has been out of prison since 2022, but said he still knows people who are incarcerated there.
“We all grew up together in this place,” he said.
Today, Caligiuri is an author and advocate for incarcerated people based in south Minneapolis. He got his start as a poet and writer at Stillwater, co-founding a prison writing group. Caligiuri said he learned critical thinking and communication skills from writing in prison which helped him get hired by the Minnesota Justice Research Center after his release.
Caligiuri said that locking up increasing numbers of people doesn’t make society safer, and he thinks the prison should close.
But, he said a part of him feels a sense of loss.
“I built my life there,” Caligiuri said. “I know the history of it, and I feel like I'm part of that history.”
Predictability and a consistent community can be especially meaningful for those with long sentences. There are currently about 100 men at Stillwater sentenced to life, some without the possibility of parole. For the men currently at Stillwater, the future can feel more uncertain than ever.
In a letter published in the Minnesota Reformer, five men incarcerated at Stillwater said serving time there, like at any prison, was “brutal and dehumanizing.” However, a majority of men at Stillwater are from the Twin Cities metro, and transferring them to a facility farther away will make it harder for friends and family to visit.
They also said losing friendships, access to specific programs and their routines as the prison closes will be difficult.
It’s unclear what will happen to the Prison Mirror, one of the oldest prison newspapers in the nation. The Mirror predates the current Stillwater facility and was first published in 1887 with the motto “God helps those who help themselves.” It later changed to “It is never too late to mend.”
‘An eerie feeling’
Donovan Diego has spent most of the last decade at Stillwater. He was sentenced to 23 years for second-degree murder and has been incarcerated since he was 18 years old. He said in August that he hoped to transfer from Stillwater to Moose Lake, a lower security, smaller prison.
However, he said he has empathy for his friends serving life sentences at Stillwater who “were told they were going to die in here.”
Diego said men he knew with life sentences have had to come to terms with Stillwater becoming their permanent home. But now, “the relationships that they cultivated in here were going to be torn away.”
That sentiment is also true for Robert Kendell-Bey. “There’s brothers in here,” he said, “who held my hand, so to speak, to turn the corner from the violence.”
Kendell-Bey is serving a life sentence for first-degree murder and attempted murder, and has been behind bars for more than 20 years.
He is already witnessing the rapid transfer of men out of Stillwater. It gives him an eerie feeling, said Kendell-Bey, when he walks by vacant cells with coveted fans pointed through the bars. “In this hot moment, people want to have those type of cells,” he said. “And they’re just empty.”
State officials anticipate Stillwater prison will fully close by June, 2029.
