The Southern Michigan Correctional Facility (JMF), which contained the heart of the 1926 prison structure, was finally closed on November 17, 2007.

[2] The original 1842 site was used as a Michigan National Guard armory for some time, and now houses residential apartments as well as several art galleries and a bicycle cooperative.

The first sign of trouble was when inmates started throwing plates against the walls of the dining halls.

In 1924, a new prison with a capacity of 5,280 inmates was built three miles (5 km) north of the city in Blackman Township.

Damaging several wings and using the canteen for food, they held nine guards hostage at knifepoint for five days.

The rioters wanted Prison Warden - retired Marine Corps General, Julian N. Frisbie, to agree to a list of eleven demands and that these be published in the local newspaper,[10][11] and also asked for a personal guarantee of an investigation into the complaints by the Governor of Michigan, G. Mennen Williams.

Morris Colosky, a friend of Remling's, paid helicopter pilot Richard Jackson to fly him from Plymouth to Lansing.

Five minutes into the flight, he pulled a knife on the pilot and told him to change his course and head towards Jackson.

Once on the ground, Remling sprayed mace in the pilot's eyes to disable him, but he still managed to fly the helicopter and follow one of the cars while radioing for help.

[14] In 2006, an inmate's death at the Southern Michigan Correctional Facility gained national attention.

Timothy Joe Souders died on August 6, 2006, after spending four days in a segregation cell.

Souders, who suffered from a severe mental disorder, was originally transferred to the segregation cell and placed in soft restraints on July 31 for disobeying orders.

After he broke out of the soft restraints three days later, prison guards restrained him on a concrete slab.

Souders went through the days being restrained in a cell lying naked in his own urine with temperatures rising higher than 100 degrees.

After the incident, prison officials made a change to restraint policies so that misbehaving inmates could only be shackled for a maximum of six hours.