Stillwater Prison to close by 2029

A flurry of budget agreements was announced by legislative leaders and Governor Walz yesterday. Among them was the announcement that the state has decided to close the men’s prison facility at Stillwater, one of our state’s largest prisons.

The stated justification for the closure was costs to maintain or to retrofit the facility. Current maintenance costs total $180 million, while a complete upgrade of the facility is estimated at $1.3 billion dollars.

Stillwater is one of our oldest prisons, built in 1914. It currently houses about 1,155 inmates, which represent 14% of our total prison population. Included in this total are about 580 inmates serving time for murder — just over 1/3 of the total number of murder commits in Minnesota’s prison system. The DOC claims that each of these inmates will be transferred to one of the other 9 men’s facilities. One of those facilities is in St. Cloud, which is our oldest facility, built in 1887. 

Both Stillwater and St. Cloud have been targeted for closure in recent years by advocates whose chief goal has been to reduce the prison population. The condition of the older prisons has made them an easy target.

I’m in no position to argue that it makes fiscal sense to completely upgrade these older prisons — it most likely doesn’t. In fact, a recent prison was built in South Dakota to house 1,500 inmates at a cost of $825 million. Another prison in Indiana was recently built to house 4,200 inmates at a cost of $1.2 billion. Both represent far more cost-effective solutions.

However, there is a certain value to these old facilities in Stillwater and St. Cloud — one that you can’t put a price tag on. It’s the same value that President Trump has recently identified as he commented on his desire to reopen Alcatraz in the federal prison system. They are intimidating.

As a deputy sheriff who transported newly committed inmates to these prisons years ago, I can tell you that I saw the impression these imposing old facilities left on newly arriving prisoners. Walking them up to the intake doors from the parking lot (no secure sally port back in the day), these former tough guys frequently got markedly quieter. Is that worth the cost — I don’t know. I do know that it doesn’t make sense for prison to be an inviting place.

But the decision has been made, and Stillwater will be closed in phases and completely closed by June of 2029. Look for correctional leaders to advocate for the closure of St. Cloud next. If both are gone, that would account for over 25% of our prison capacity. 

While it is possible to find room for the 1,155 inmates currently in Stillwater, I suspect the closure will provide even more “justification” for the continued decrease in our prison population. This despite already being among the states with the lowest prison population rate in the country — less than half the national average of about 323/100,000.

We currently have about 8,300 adult prison inmates. In recent decades ,we have had over 10,000 prison inmates. Given the level of random violent crime Minnesotans have experienced in recent years, it’s fair to say that Minnesota is no longer an 8,000-bed prison state. As our state approaches 6 million residents, we should be planning for 10,000-plus prison beds.

Closing one of our largest and oldest prisons, with no current plan to add a facility and/or bed space doesn’t get us close — and that serves Minnesotans poorly.