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23 March 2015 Last updated at 00:22 GMT
Twenty-five years on, we look back on the 25-day unrest through the stories of the people who were at the centre of the siege in Manchester.
Speaking to BBC Inside Out North West, Paul Taylor, the inmate who started the riot, said he regretted the violence but stood by the protest.
The Strangeways riot was the longest in British penal history and changed the way prisons were run in the UK.