Minnesota Correctional Facility-Shakopee (MCF-Shakopee) is Minnesota’s only state women’s prison. Women reformers pushed for its existence in the 1910s, arguing that women needed a place away from men where they could receive training instead of punishment. It opened in 1920 as the State Reformatory for Women. Over the next hundred years, it became increasingly crowded, and its focus shifted from “retraining” its prisoners to confining them.
The institution approved by the legislature was built in Shakopee. It was made up of cottages and had no fence. It opened in 1920, receiving its first fifteen prisoners from the State Prison at Stillwater. According to the first warden, the first seventy-eight prisoners were convicted of stealing (forty-seven); miscellaneous, including sex delinquency (eighteen); taking life (seven); and marrying someone while already married (six).
By 1970, the State Reformatory had been renamed the Minnesota Correctional Institution for Women, but prisoners were still required to wear dresses to dinner. Critics said staff often treated prisoners as “retarded children rather than as mature women.” In the mid-1970s, the prison’s warden let children stay overnight with their mothers. The average number of women incarcerated at the prison hovered around forty-eight. That would soon change.
In 1978, after a series of high-profile crimes committed by Minnesota women, the Shakopee City Council passed a resolution asking the Department of Corrections to put a barbed wire fence around the prison. As US politicians pushed being “tough on crime” and waging a “war on drugs,” Minnesota’s prison population began to rise. “The era of reform has come and gone,” the Minneapolis Star announced in a 1978 story about the Shakopee prison.
By 1986, the population was up to eighty-five women. The state moved the prison across the street to a new, larger facility, Minnesota Correctional Facility-Shakopee. By 1994, the prison population had more than doubled to 194 and the state expanded the prison facility. A 1997 Department of Corrections report said Minnesota’s prison sentences were some of the toughest in the US, contributing to the growth.
For the Good of the Women: A Short History of the Minnesota Correctional Facility Shakopee, by Thomas M. Daly.
Bloomington, Minn. : Daly Publishing, c2004.
MNHS call number: HV9305.M62 S522 2004
Some inmate records for the Minnesota Correctional Facility-Shakopee can be viewed in person at the library, however any which fall under restrictions will need to be reviewed by library staff prior to access. Please visit our State Correctional Institution (Prison) Research Request page for more information on ordering state hospital records through our distance research service.
To order a prison records index search and records search for an individual visit our State Correctional Institution Records Request.
Index to Inmate Case Files, 1919-1977
MNHS call number: Ask staff at reference desk.
Inmate Case Files, 1919-1977
Discharged inmate case files, nos. 1-1707, for inmates admitted from 1919 to 1977.
MNHS call number: Digital Finding Aid
Patient Registers and Indexes- Shakopee, 1920-1924
Part of the Minnesota Division of Public Institutions Series
Alphabetical index by inmate name, and statistical record that may include admission date, inmate's name and residence, relative, gender, age, and history.
MNHS call number: Digital Finding Aid
Minnesota Department of Public Institutions Personnel Service Records- Shakopee State Women's Reformatory, D-W 1931-1938
Cards listing employee name, address, position, salary, brief statement of duties, data on previous state service, education, training, and personal and family information.
MNHS call number: See the finding aid in the library (Social Security Department: Public Institutions Division) or use the scanned PDF.
Payroll Register, 1920-1940
MNHS call number: Digital Finding Aid
Note: These records include private information about individuals. Records with private information are closed for 75 years from date of last entry in the record. Researchers must apply for permission to use these records. Please email us at library.permissions@mnhs.org for more information on accessing restricted records.
Minnesota Reformatory for Women at Shakopee
12 photoprints. Exterior and interior views of buildings and views of female inmates cultivating the fields and feeding farm animals.
MNHS call number: Digital Finding Aid
The Reflector
Shakopee, Minn. : WSR, 1935-
1935-1945
MNHS call number: FOLIO HV 9305 .M62S5 .R3 v.1-3
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