Two-Week Lockdown at BOP Women’s Prison in Minnesota After Nine Overdoses, Two Deaths
The Federal Correctional Institution (FCI) in Waseca, a women’s prison on the former campus of a University of Minnesota technical school, was locked down for over two weeks after a mass drug overdose sent prisoners to a local hospital on September 4, 2024. The low-security prison was already under scrutiny following two prisoner deaths over a nine-month period, one that also saw a less-than-glowing report from the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) of the federal Department of Justice, the parent agency of the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP).
The most recent death occurred on February 4, 2024, when Jessica Wallowingbull, 29, was discovered unresponsive in her cell. She was serving a 45-month sentence for drunkenly stabbing and seriously injuring the man she lived with in Wyoming in 2022. BOP called her death an apparent suicide. Fellow prisoner Starsha Silva, 36, died at a hospital after being found unresponsive on May 24, 2023, with what BOP called a “medical emergency.” Her 168-month term was being served for drug crimes in Hawaii.
The OIG conducted an unannounced inspection of the prison in 2023, reporting significant problems with infrastructure, staffing shortages and the flow of contraband in October of that year. Inspectors found leaky roofs, insufficient security cameras and prisoners housed in basements with exposed pipes. Due to short staffing, the prison was heavily reliant on overtime for existing guard staff, filling some shifts with “augmentation” of duties of non-guard staff—including janitors and teachers.
The report further faulted BOP for letting waiting lists gather up to 300 prisoners needing programming authorized under the First Step Act of 2018 to help them reintegrate post-release, even as contraband synthetic drugs and suboxone flowed into the prison. Contraband drugs were suspected in the September 2024 hospitalization of nine prisoners who were “exhibiting signs of drug use,” along with two staffers who feared “potential exposure.” No one involved was named.
The OIG investigation had been prompted by a series of sexual assaults by staff, including the former warden, at FIC-Dublin in California—earning it the nickname “Rape Club,” as PLN reported. [See: PLN, July 2024, p.13.] At FCI-Waseka, OIG also reviewed 11 allegations of sexual abuse in the year before its early 2023 inspection; BOP claimed it investigated and acted upon all. See: Inspection of the BOP’s FCI-Waseca, Dep’t of Justice OIG (Oct. 2023). Several abuse victims from California were relocated to the Minnesota lockup.
Additional sources: KSTP, Mankato Free Press, Southern Minnesota News
As a digital subscriber to Prison Legal News, you can access full text and downloads for this and other premium content.
Already a subscriber? Login