Roughly eight prisoners, including a Lewiston man, at Maine State Prison in Warren have been on a hunger strike since Sunday, an official said.

None of the prisoners have needed medical intervention, but have been monitored and evaluated by prison medical workers, said Denise Lord, associate commissioner at the Department of Corrections. That includes checking vital signs, she said.

The prisoners are housed in the so-called special management unit at the prison where some inmates are at high risk of escape, harm to themselves or others.

Unlike in the prison’s general population, prisoners in the special management unit, known as Super-Max, are not allowed radios or televisions in their cells. They may only have pen and paper as well as books and magazines.

The striking prisoners are protesting that policy, Lord said.

Louis Rubino Jr., 27, of Lewiston is one of the prisoners refusing to eat since Sunday and drink since Monday.

He was sentenced in Androscoggin County Superior Court in 2006 to four years in prison for unlawful trafficking and possession of a scheduled drug. He was making methamphetamine in his second floor apartment, where an explosion shot flames out his window.

In a letter to a Sun Journal reporter on Friday, Rubino wrote his objections to the prison’s policy. “We feel this is completely unfair.”

Rubino and seven other prisoners pledged not to drink or eat until given the option of buying TVs or radios, he wrote. “This is not a game. We are willing to take this to the bitter end.”

He said he and the other protesters are locked down 23 hours a day for five days a week. The other two days, they are locked down 24 hours each day.

“Now think about it. The economy is not good. Medical bills will be up there,” he wrote.

Lord said the prison has seen hunger strikes before, but they are rare occurrences.

“If we have one or two hunger strikes a year, that’s a lot,” she said.

None of the fasting prisoners have ever been medically compromised or required medical intervention, Lord said.

Since construction of the Maine State Prison in Warren in 2002, including the special management unit, radios and televisions have been prohibited from that unit, she said.

Inmates may have their own radios and televisions in their cells in the prison’s general population.