Seven inmates were killed and at least 17 others seriously injured after fighting broke out between prisoners inside a maximum security prison in South Carolina, the fourth deadly incident at the facility in the past year.

Prisons spokesman Jeff Taillon announced the grim outcome after State Law Enforcement Division agents helped secure Lee Correctional Institution around 3 a.m. Monday. According to Taillon no officers were wounded after multiple inmate fights broke out at 7:15 p.m. Sunday. He said 17 of the injured required medical attention outside the prison.

The incident at Lee CI resulted in 17 inmates requiring outside medical attention and 7 inmates were killed.

— SC Dept. Corrections (@SCDCNews) April 16, 2018

The facility was secured at 2:55 a.m. ET Monday. No other details were given about what led to the fights.

The South Carolina Department of Corrections tweeted that it involved multiple inmate-on-inmate altercations in three housing units.

Lee Correctional Institution was secured at 2:55 AM following an incident which started at 7:15 PM. The incident involved multiple inmate on inmate altercations in three housing units.

— SC Dept. Corrections (@SCDCNews) April 16, 2018

Lee County Fire/Rescue said ambulances from multiple jurisdictions lined up outside to tend to the wounded. The local coroner’s office also responded.

According to AP, the maximum-security facility in Bishopville houses about 1,500 inmates, some of South Carolina’s most violent and longest-serving offenders. Two officers were stabbed there in a 2015 fight.

Last month, inmates reportedly overpowered an officer for more than an hour and took control of one side of a housing unit. In February, inmate Robert Odell Brown was killed by another inmate at Lee Correctional Institution.

Last November, another dispute between two prisoners led to the stabbing death of inmate Larry Rainey. And last July, inmate Christian D. Ray died from injuries suffered during a fight.

These deaths at Lee are the most in any South Carolina prison in recent years. Four inmates were killed by a pair of prisoners in the state’s Kirkland Correctional Institution last year.

Unfortunately, such incidents are to be expected in a nation whose incarceration rate has exploded in the past 50 or so years…

… which in turn has led to unprecedented overcrowding.

There is a loophole: those municipalities who have a few extra bitcoin lying around can buy their own prison. Recall that in January we noted that a former medium-security prison has come up for sale on Craigslist. The facility is located in Brush, Colorado with an asking price of $1,200,000 or what at the time was just 88 bitcoins.