A Minnesota prison has "resolved without incident" a situation involving about 100 inmates in one housing unit who would not return to their cells Sunday, in what a former inmate called an act of "self-preservation" in the face of dangerously high temperatures in the region. The situation was "calm, peaceful and stable throughout the day," a Department of Corrections spokesperson said in a statement, adding that "incarcerated individuals in the unit indicated dissatisfaction" because the understaffed facility had to limit inmates' time out of their cells. But advocates positioned outside of the prison said inmates are fed up with the lack of air conditioning and limited access to showers and ice during on-and-off lockdowns over the past two months, the AP reports.
The prison is in Bayport 25 miles east of Minneapolis, which was under an afternoon heat advisory for temperatures approaching 100 degrees Fahrenheit. "My organization got calls from inmates who are actually inside," starting at 6:30am, said Marvina Haynes of Minnesota Wrongfully Convicted Judicial Reform, whose brother is an inmate at Stillwater. "This morning, they decided that they weren't going to lock into their cells," said David Boehnke of Twin Cities Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee. The department confirmed that inmates have been in lockdown status because of the holiday weekend, meaning they are kept in their cells with "limited access facility-wide to out-of-cell time for showers, phone use and recreation." The facility remained on lockdown when the inmates returned to their cells.
The executive director of the union representing Stillwater's correctional officers, Bart Andersen, said in a statement that the incident is "endemic and highlights the truth behind the operations of the MN Department of Corrections with chronic understaffing." Andersen said such conditions upset inmates because of restrictions on program and recreation time "when there are not enough security staff to protect the facility." Haynes and Boehnke said the inmate action was an impromptu response to unsafe conditions, including access to clean drinking water, which they say is reportedly brown in color. The department said those claims "about a lack of clean water in the facility are patently false." The prison was built in 1914, per the AP.
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