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Braden Westerman

Mrs. Burr, Instructor

English 2010

23 March 2017

Criminal Justice Research Paper

Prison overcrowding has been an ongoing problem in the United States for many years.

In fact, the United States is currently the worlds leader for the amount of prisoners per 100,000

people. This, of course, comes at great expense to taxpayers so over the last decade many states

have searched for ways to bring costs down - and Utah is no exception.

Currently Utah has two state prisons - one is in Gunnison and the other in Draper. One of

the main solutions for overcrowding over the years has been outsourcing inmates to county jails.
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This solution, however, impacted security and has increased costs associated with it as well. It is

a band-aid approach to this situation while the state looks for a cure.

According to Greg Smith and Associates in an article titled Utah State Prisons Reach

Capacity outsourcing state prison inmates to county jails is putting the public in danger.

Because urban county jails are also overcrowded, the state usually employs rural county jails for

outsourcing. These rural county jails are not equipped or prepared to provide the extra security

and supervision required for this level of offenders. To illustrate this Mr. Smith cited the escape

of two state prison inmates, convicted of murder, that were outsourced to the Daggett County

Jail.

The article suggested that if we did not have the prison overcrowding problem the

inmates that escaped would have been in one of the state prisons where they belonged. The

increased costs and resources of outsourcing prisoners to county jails came from the rental fee

that the state pays. They also come from the fact that every time an outsourced inmate has to go

to court or to a medical appointment two officers are sent to transport that inmate from the

county jail to their appointment. Since these county jails are usually in rural locations this

increases costs and travel time. Both time and money would be saved if we had more room in

the prison.

A report published by the Utah Commission on Criminal and Juvenile Justice in 2014

outlined the severity of this problem if left unresolved. Utahs prison population has grown by

18 percent since 2004. Without action, the state will need to house an additional 2,700 inmates -

a 37 percent growth in the prison population by 2034. The report also found that Utah has one

of the higher recidivism rates in the country. Recidivism rates are the rates at which people
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reoffend and return to prisons or jails. Utahs recidivism rate is around 50%. This means that

50% of the people that Utah incarcerates return to the prison system again within the next few

years. When someone finishes their sentence and is released, ideally they are supposed to have

changed and learned their lesson and never return to prison.

The annual spending for corrections in 2014 was $270 million (Utah Commission on

Criminal and Juvenile Justice). Citizens should have confidence that their taxpayer dollars are

making a difference and keeping crime rates down and the prisoners off the streets. If the prison

overcrowding population is not solved the state will be forced to release people who should still

be locked up out into the public which could dramatically increase the crime rate and negatively

affect the lives of Utahns. The report concluded that for all this spending, taxpayers have not

been getting a strong public safety return. This report made it clear that the need for more

prison space or a lower incarceration rate will be an even bigger issue within the next few years.

Over the last few years there have been many potential solutions to the prison

overcrowding problem that have been discussed. Some of these solutions include, ways to

reduce recidivism rates, building a third prison, replacing the Draper prison with a more modern

prison, and increasing the housing space of the two existing prisons. In 2015, lawmakers made

their decision. It was decided that the state would replace the Draper prison with a more modern

prison and the Justice Reinvestment Initiative or JRI was signed into law.

Speaking about the JRI in an article in the Daily Herald, Ron Gordon the Executive

Director of the Commission on Criminal and Juvenile Justice said, Two-thirds of prison

admissions are for probationers or parolees who had failed, so only one-third of the inmates were

ordered straight from the court, that said to us, somethings wrong here. This means that
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only one third of those booked into prison are new offenders, the rest have been there before.

The JRI attempts to address this issue.

Another component of the JRI is that many felony drug possession crimes are taken down

to misdemeanor offenses depending on how much of the substance was possessed and how the

individual responds to the arrest. Their reasoning behind this is to send them to treatment

specialists for rehabilitation and to avoid the long periods of incarceration, saving money and

space. It is the largest criminal justice initiative in state history and is meant to rehabilitate and

reform offenders. The JRI put into law the following recommendations from the 2014 report

from the Utah Commission on Criminal and Juvenile Justice: prison space should be mainly

reserved for those with serious or violent offenses, penalties and sentencing procedures should be

changed, probation and parole supervision should be strengthened, and treatment should be

improved and expanded. According to The Pew Charitable Trusts, replacing Draper with a more
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modern prison and implementing the JRI is expected to to avoid nearly all of the anticipated

prison growth and save taxpayers more than $500 million over 20 years.

But, the decisions made have not been without controversy. Many think that although

this is a great plan it lacks sufficient funds and resources to be effective. Supreme Court Chief

Justice Matthew Durrant when asked about the JRI has said, On this point I need to be clear if

treatment is unavailable, not only will the system fail to improve, it will likely worsen, putting

offenders who previously would have gone to jail or prison into the community, without

treatment, will almost certainly increase crime." (Utah Commision on Criminal and Juvenile

Justice) He believes that if there is not enough funding applied to this program it will make

matters worse. Adult Probation and Parole or AP&P has stated that they dont have the money

or resources to be able to keep track of all the additional people on probation and parole that has

come from the JRI.

In an interview I did with an agent for Utah Adult Probation and Parole I asked several

questions pertaining to his thoughts on the JRI. This individual began working in AP&P prior to

the JRI becoming law and has found that the parolees that he supervised prior to the JRI were

more compliant to their parole requirements and terminated parole faster and more successfully

than those he has supervised since the JRI. He attributed this to longer incarceration periods

initially served as well as the real threat that violations would land them back in prison. Today,

their violation would have to be something very major before they have any chance of being sent

back, and they know it. He said, I am seeing more thefts, drug use, and other non-violent

offenses from parolees than I did prior to the JRI. Caseloads have also gone up dramatically and

the resources and funding are not there to handle the increase. His general feeling was that the
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JRI is not making the public safer. He believes that data after the JRI implementation may

show a decrease in prison population now and that recidivism rates have dropped but it isnt

because parolees have stopped committing crimes, its because we cant send them back when

they do. Many of his parolees commit crimes over and over again but never get sent back. If

this isnt sacrificing public safety then I dont know what is.

Critics of the JRI also point to the shooting of Unified police officer Doug Barney in

January 2016 as a reason to reevaluate the JRI. Many argue that the shooter should not have

been out of jail when he took Officer Barneys life. Criminals are continuing to reoffend without

being sent back to prison.

Only time will tell if the Justice Reinvestment Initiative can be considered successful.

What will they measure to determine this? Will they only look at the number of inmates and the

recidivism rate to make this decision? If thats the case itll be a mistake because it will only be

telling one side of the story. To get the full picture we will also need to look at the crime rates;

not just violent or serious crime rates but all crime rates. Thats the only we will be able to tell if

public safety was sacrificed or not. It is clear that the only way that the JRI even has a chance of

working is with adequate funding, and so far it is not happening. If the JRI doesnt work,

lawmakers may regret their decision to make the new prison a smaller prison than the Draper site

that its replacing.

Works Cited
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Eskew, Alan. "Public Hearings on Criminal Justice Reforms." EBSCOhost. N.p., n.d.

Web. 23 Mar. 2017. <http://web.b.ebscohost.com/ehost/

Herald, Kurt Hanson Daily. "Does the Justice Reinvestment Initiative Help or Hurt

Crime Rates?"Daily Herald. N.p., 19 Apr. 2016. Web. 27 Mar. 2017.

Jenkins, Kevin. "Criminal Justice Reform Bill Passes First Hurdle." EBSCOhost. N.p.,

n.d. Web. 23 Mar. 2017. <http://web.b.ebscohost.com/ehost

N.p., n.d. Web. 23 Mar. 2017.

<http://correctionalnews.com/wp-content/uploads/web_Feature.SaltLakeCity.jpg>.

Personal interview. 29 Mar. 2017

Robert Gehrke The Salt Lake Tribune. "Questions Raised Whether Utah Building New

Prison Bigger than It Needs to Be." The Salt Lake Tribune. N.p., 21 Dec. 2016. Web. 27 Mar.

2017.

"Utah's 2015 Criminal Justice Reforms." The Pew Charitable Trusts. N.p., n.d. Web. 30

Mar. 2017.

Utah Commision on Criminal and Juvenile Justice. "Justice Reinvestment." (2013): n.

pag. Web. 23 Mar. 2017.

"Utah State Prisons Reach Capacity." Greg Smith and Associates. N.p., n.d. Web. 27

Mar. 2017.

Zhang, Chi-Chi. "Study: Utah Inmate Recidivism Rates Drop."deseretnews.com Deseret

News, 17 Apr. 2011. Web. 27 Mar. 2017.