Take A Look Inside Minnesota’s Only Level 5 Maximum Security Prison
Take a look inside Oak Park Heights, Minnesota's only level 5 maximum security prison.
The prison opened up in 1982 and is located between the cities of Stillwater and Bayport. The correctional facility can have to up 473 incarcerated people there and this place happens to operate at the highest custody level of any facility in Minnesota.
There is a modern medical infirmary designed to handle 24-hour care for all adult males in need of services from the Transitional Care Unit. There is also a Mental Health Unit in the facility as well.
The facility has educational programming that includes:
- Adult Basic Education - including literacy and digital literacy.
- General Educational Development - State Adult and High School diploma programs.
- Computer career programming.
- The new Perspective - the incarcerated newspaper that has been in production since the '80s.
There is also highly-structured programming such as:
- Mentorship programming.
- Building character.
- Lifer group.
- Food services.
- Restorative justice.
- Institutional janitorial services.
- Painters.
- Grounds keeping.
This facility has the largest contract to house federal inmates with serious and violent histories. There also has never been one documented escape here.
Most notable prisoners include:
- John Paul Scott - a bank robber known for escaping from Alcatraz. He reached the San Francisco shore by swimming, but was caught almost immediately. He died in 1987.
- Paul Michael Stephani - Known as the 'weepy voice killer', a serial killer who died of skin cancer in 1998.
- Richard Lee McNair - A convicted murder who has escaped from three other prisons.
- Derek Chauvin - Minneapolis Police Officer who was convicted in the murder of George Floyd.
I recently found about a 50-minute-long documentary about the Prison that you can watch below:
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