Prisoners' move to new building eases crowding

On paper at least, prison officials eased a crowding problem at the Utah State Prison this past week, moving 250 inmates to a facility that has been vacant for 18 months.

The move occurred Monday, with staff using buses to shuttle the inmates from the Promontory building to the Lone Peak building, Department of Corrections spokesman Jack Ford said. Lone Peak is a minimum security housing unit for inmates with parole dates and those enrolled in work-release programs. The building was renovated over the past several months at a cost of $1.3 million. It was not expected to open until January.

Some 150 inmates remain housed in Promontory, which has a capacity of 400 inmates, Ford said. The now-vacant portion of that building will be retrofitted with sliding doors and double-outside fencing, upgrading the unit from minimum security to medium security accommodations and adding 250 beds to the state prison system.

In the meantime, corrections officials are juggling a crowding problem.

For more than month, the prison population has hovered around 6,000 inmates and by all estimates is on track to outpace department projections for increases in the population.

On Thursday the prison population was 5,980, which includes inmates in state prisons and those in beds contracted through county jails, Ford said. But that was after Tuesday's weekly release of inmates who have either completed their sentences or who are beginning parole.

"We'll be back up over 6,000 before the week's end," Ford predicted. "The count continues to grow."

Officials are also juggling the DOC budget to keep prisoners under the watchful eye of corrections officers. While federal grant funds were used for renovations to the Lone Peak building, there is no additional funding for staffing, Ford said. So with inmates now in both Lone Peak and Promontory, officials are paying overtime in order to maintain needed staffing levels in the two locations, he said.

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E-mail: jdobner@desnews.com