By AP
STANDISH, MI –
Federal corrections officials plan to tour Michigan's Standish Maximum Security Prison this month as part of an idea to convert it into a federal facility.
Michigan Corrections officials said Monday the tour will be the week of Aug. 16. Federal Bureau of Prisons officials have visited the facility previously.
A new facility is needed to handle overcrowding at federal prisons. Reopening the Standish prison about 145 miles north of Detroit could help the area's economy.
State budget cuts forced Standish prison to close last fall. Its capacity was 604 inmates. The prison had been considered to hold 229 suspected al-Qaida, Taliban and foreign fighters jailed at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp in Cuba.
State officials say that's no longer the plan.