Nearly 150 mental health inmates currently held at the Larned Correctional Mental Health Facility will be transferred to the El Dorado Correctional Facility, as part of plan to convert the former into a medium-security prison.
As theHutchinson News reports, the Kansas Department of Corrections announced last week plans to convert the Larned Correctional Mental Health Facility into a medium-security prison to house 18- to 25-year-old inmates with less than three years left to serve.
Plans are to move the 150 mental health inmates now housed at Larned to the much larger El Dorado Correctional Facility, which is located about 30 miles northeast of Wichita.
KDOC communications director Todd Fertig said the Larned facility has the capability to hold 300 regular medium-security inmates by making them share what are currently single-man cells.
Fertig said the agency will make the moves gradually, with plans to start transitioning both facilities by midsummer.