Legislative Audit: More Oversight Needed for State Prisoners at County Jails

Aug 27, 2008 by Elizabeth Ziegler

(KCPW News) After eight serious security breaches, including five jail breaks, over the past four years, a state audit affirms the 21 counties that accept state prisoners in their jails need better oversight. Tom Patterson, director of the Utah Department of Corrections, embraced the audit, acknowledging the recommendations would improve public safety.

"The county facilities, for a large part, are very, very well managed. What we're talking about is identifying some vulnerabilities that have occurred in a few," Patterson says. "That said, it has pointed to we need to improve throughout the entire system. So we're not just focusing on a couple of counties, we're focusing on a systematic approach to improve our accountability."

The audit found the department knew about some security risks at the county jails and did nothing to correct them. It recommends revising the jail contract to include clear performance measures, better monitoring of each county's compliance with the jail contract, and improving enforcement of recommendations to correct deficiencies identified by the state.

Speaker of the House of Representatives Greg Curtis questioned whether the state can have authority to tell counties how to run their jails, considering many counties, such as Beaver County, have built prisons specifically for the purpose of housing state inmates.

"The financial impact on a county of that size, if we just said, well, Beaver, you are not meeting the standards that we feel are warranted, we would bankrupt the county of Beaver," Curtis says. "And that is really not an option for the state of Utah. So we need to step in and say, we will buy the facility, or we will run the facility or do something."

A growing number of state inmates are housed at county jail facilities. The program began in 1985 and by 1989 there were 78 prison inmates in county jails. As of this year, 1400 state inmates, or 22 percent of the prison population, are housed in county jails.

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