SAULT STE. MARIE, MI (AP)-- The Michigan Department of Corrections plans to reopen the Hiawatha
Correctional Facility in the eastern Upper Peninsula amid security upgrades throughout the prison system.
The Evening News of Sault Ste. Marie reports the department determined that it was less expensive to upgrade security at the Hiawatha Correctional Facility, which closed in 2009, than to make similar changes at the nearby Kinross Correctional Facility.
The department says the Kinross Correctional Facility will be deactivated and the Hiawatha facility will be renamed to keep the Kinross name. Department spokesman Chris Gautz tells The Associated Press the change likely will happen in October. He says no layoffs are planned.
The current Kinross facility is a former barracks that wasn't designed to house prisoners. The Hiawatha facility currently is used as a training site.