BAYPORT, Minn. — There is a palpable sense of hope that lingers around the Stillwater prison, despite the facility’s gloomy fate come 2029.
“We’re trying to stop that, we want it to stay open,” said Kurt Baker, a barber at the new barbershop at the Minnesota Correction Facility Stillwater. Courtney Ocegueda, who got his tattoo license through Stillwater’s tattoo program while incarcerated, added, “A lot of people don’t want to see this place closed, and I can see why.”
“What’s happening here is working,” Ocegueda said.
Asked if anyone had told them there’s a chance Stillwater could stay open, Charles Blom, sitting in Baker’s barber chair, said no. “That’s just the hope,” Blom said.
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The barbershop and tattoo program are outward signs of what some of the incarcerated call the facility’s thriving environment. Fear looms about the future of those programs and other opportunities when Stillwater prison closes.
The 2029 closure of Stillwater prison was decided in May 2025 during a closed-door budget deal between lawmakers and Gov. Tim Walz. It was a tight budget year — the state was staring down a $6 billion budget deficit by 2028 and ended up shrinking a previous $72 billion state budget to $67 billion.
Several men incarcerated at Stillwater said they first heard about the closure on the news. Staff were also caught off guard. Associate Warden Dan Moe said he was “very surprised.”
Justin Jimenez, a tattoo artist hired as Stillwater staff in 2023 to help launch the tattoo shop, said it “blindsided everyone.”
“I don’t think it’s anything people working here seen coming,” he said. “No heads up.”
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Walz, alongside Department of Corrections Commissioner Paul Schell, said the decision was based on the deteriorating facilities. Stillwater prison, Minnesota’s second oldest prison, was built in 1914.
Schell said the cost of bringing the facility up to modern standards could be as high as $1.3 billion.
“We did some studies of what it would look like; for the upkeep at $180 million or the possibility of building a new facility, which would be approximately $1.3 billion. And I get that those numbers are pretty astronomical,” Moe said.
“There are buildings here on our 103 acres that we do have, that are older, that are not functioning. We also have several buildings here that we use every day that are fully safe,” he added.
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The impending closure of Stillwater brought something new: Earned Living Units.
This is an experiment of sorts for people who have done well during their time in prison and are rewarded with more freedom and choices. Those choices include education and employment programs, increased access to visiting, single cells (sometimes two cells per person), access to recreation and outdoors, more furniture, dining, electronic, and clothing options.
It’s the first time Minnesota has tested something like this. The Department of Corrections (DOC) is also testing a few of the Earned Living Units at the state correctional facility in Faribault.
People apply for the program and are vetted by staff through interviews.
Blom, who is set to be released in 2026, said he was hesitant when he first heard about the Earned Living Units because some initiatives, like the Minnesota Rehabilitation and Reinvestment Act, haven’t gone as planned. But he was proven wrong.
“We came over here and hit the ground running,” Blom said.
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The “old Stillwater”—a phrase some people have a distaste for—was described as what people picture as a stereotypical prison: fights, lockdowns, lines of 200 men walking down hallways in a single file line, escorted by officers.
Now, men walk freely throughout the facility.
Darrell Miller, who was at Stillwater before the Earned Living Units, said, “It’s cool now.”
Before, he said it was like “prison prison.”
“Everybody [is] on the same page, they’re trying to self-grow,” Miller said. “They should make it an Earned Living Prison.”
Joseph Soltis, who helped start the barbershop, said the transformation has been like “night and day.”
“We don’t even say officer or guard anymore, we just call them by their name,” Soltis said.
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Moe said he hopes the positivity from the Earned Living Units can “stick” and continue even after Stillwater closes.
He said that Stillwater is “breaking ground” in corrections with the Earned Living Units.
“As evidence shows, earned living units reduce recidivism, they reduce institutional misconduct, they reduce morale issues of the us-versus-them mentality of prison and incarceration,” Moe said.
He added that, although it was sad, it was a reality that before the Earned Living Units, “a guy would leave and sometimes two weeks, a month later,” be back at Stillwater.
Since the Earned Living Units were introduced, he said he hasn’t had one guy return and the facility hasn’t seen a single fight.
“The goal would be that we could take the 310 incarcerated persons that we have at Stillwater who are doing well, and spread them out through our other nine or 10 facilities,” Moe said.
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The state’s total prison population is around 8,200—a decrease from what the DOC recorded in the 2010s, with a peak population of nearly 11,000 in 2014. The system’s current total capacity is 9,500.
Schell has said that even with the Stillwater closure taken into account, the current incarcerated population is “stable and manageable.”
The closure is planned to come in phases.
The current population of Stillwater has been reduced from roughly 1,200 to 543 as of January 16. Moe said the facility is set to stay around 550 until the DOC gives more direction on Phase 2.
The majority of inmates moved in the fall were transferred to Rush City or Lino Lakes, according to the DOC.
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Some people at Stillwater are set to leave before the June 2029 closure.
Jonathan White, for example, is set to leave in April 2029. But he said he would want the prison to stay open regardless because he has “people in here who got a lot of time left,” including some serving life sentences.
White said he wasn’t so much surprised by the closure announcement because he’s learned not to get “too comfortable.”
White is also a barber at Stillwater. He painted his cell with a mural of his barber logo, “Johnny Blaze,” which he said inspires him every day when he wakes up.
He said his days feel better now, not longer.
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Ocegueda has some time left after the closure in 2029.
He said that “if it closes, it closes,” and he will go to the next place and “keep on moving forward.”
But he said the tattoo program has given him the “ability to see a future and have something to stand on” when he leaves.
“It’s working, it’s a positive thing,” he said of Stillwater. “Give this place a chance.”
https://www.duluthnewstribune.com/news/minnesota/inmates-dont-want-stillwater-prison-to-close-whats-happening-here-is-working