Officials have restricted the movement of inmates at the Iowa State Penitentiary following Monday morning fights inside the walls of the maximum security prison.
Prison officials say there were “fights and assaults involving eight” inmates. One of the people in a “Corrections Emergency Response Team” trying to break up the fighting got a puncture wound on their right hand that required treatment at Fort Madison’s hospital.
The eight inmates involved in the skirmishes had been separated from the general prison population because of previous behavior. A news release from the Iowa Department of Corrections indicates the fights happened “during a program designed to prepare offenders for their eventual” return to the general prison population.
The state’s maximum security prison is in lock down mode, but inmate movement inside the prison is restricted, so inmates can leave their cells to eat, but exercise breaks aren’t allowed.