FeedsState to close Northville prison
Officials in Northville Township got the call Tuesday they’ve long been waiting for.
The Robert Scott Correctional Facility on Beck and Five Mile roads, long rumored to be on the budgetary chopping block, will close down next year.
“This is confirmed,” said Township Manager Chip Snider, who added that he and other officials had heard whispers of a closure for about a year. “Officially it’ll be closed in May of 2009.
“This is huge, just huge for us,” he added. “For some reason, Northville Township has been a dumping ground for institutional facilities. We’ve gotten away from that.”
The township had also been the home of the former Detroit House of Corrections (DeHoCo), the old Wayne County training facility and, of course, the Northville Psychiatric Hospital.
John Cordell, a public information specialist with the Michigan Department of Corrections, said it was a financial move that will save Michigan taxpayers about $32 million annually.
“One of the main objects of this is operational efficiency,” he said. “It’s more efficient to have our women prisoners consolidated geographically. It makes sense to have them all in one location.”
The prisoners will be moved to the Huron Valley Correctional Center in Ypsilanti.
The Robert Scott Correctional Facility opened during the 1980s, but was expanded and transformed into an all-women facility in 1991. Cordell said the state would start planning the transition to the Ypsilanti facility almost immediately, but it’ll still take more than a year to fully close down the prison.
“There are a lot that you have to take into account when you close a prison,” he said. “You have to think about how to do it, where the prisoners will go—and there are some considerations for staff, too.”
The land will be declared as surplus and put up for sale.
