Identity thieves will face tougher enforcement, while additional prison beds will help keep convicted criminals behind bars under bills that passed the 2006 Legislature.

Multiple bills tackled the growing problem of identity theft this session, all of which will help people reduce the damage of theft and increase the ability of law enforcement to track, and ideally catch, the thieves.

Of particular concern is the use of the Internet and e-mail to steal people's information, especially bank account numbers or other financial information, through the use of "phishing." That tactic usually includes e-mails asking for personal information or directing a user to a mock bank Web site — which often looks almost identical to the real Web site — and then steals the account numbers and passwords.

Thanks to SB52, which was sponsored by Sen. Patrice Arent, D-South Cottonwood, that crime will now be a second-degree felony and will not depend, as it does in most fraud cases, on the amount of money lost. The enhanced penalty recognizes that even if a person does not actually lose money, the theft of the identity often consumes a lot of time to correct the mistakes or unfreeze accounts.

Two other bills will also help discourage identity theft, as well as help consumers. With SB71, a person can freeze their credit report, which would prevent new accounts from being opened, while SB184 will prohibit somebody from claiming they did not know that an identity was stolen if they use the information to purchase goods or services.

Both bills were sponsored by Sen. Carlene Walker, R-Cottonwood Heights, and have both passed the Legislature. Attorney General Mark Shurtleff said in a news release Wednesday that the bills now put Utah at a significant advantage in the fight against identity theft.

"Utah now leads the nation with this innovative approach to protect consumers," Shurtleff said. "We've hammered out a solution that is friendly to consumers and hostile to identity thieves."

A number of other bills were passed that enhanced the penalties for various crimes, from drive-by homicides to sexual abuse of children. There were also increased penalties for underage tattooing, causing a traffic accident while high on marijuana, or a first-degree murder, which was increased to 15 years to life under a bill spawned by the murder of Lori Hacking.

For those who are sentenced to prison, the state will soon have 184 more beds to hold them, thanks to $20 million in funding for a new wing at the Central Utah Correction Facility in Gunnison. The Utah Department of Corrections also received $4.5 million for ongoing operations at the prison.

Additionally, they received almost $3 million to raise the salaries of their officers, which are currently paid less than many county jails, spokesman Jack Ford said. Without the compensation increases, the state will continue to lose experienced corrections officers — many of which they also trained — because they cannot pay competitively.

"We're very pleased that they gave money to give our officers a salary increase," Ford said. "We've been losing a lot of officers, and we're still going to be behind in salaries. But this will help us . . . we're getting what we realistically expected."

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E-mail: jloftin@desnews.com