Salt Lake County holds the line: no new jail beds

The Salt Lake County Council is sticking to its word: No new jail beds.

Sheriff Aaron Kennard pleaded with the council Tuesday to re-open Oxbow Jail and open up two additional units at the county jail, but the council didn't budge.

Instead, the council told Kennard and Sheriff-elect Jim Winder to continue to find ways to remove low-risk offenders from the jail and put them into treatment programs.

"We have done all we can through the alternatives to incarceration; we need desperately those beds," Kennard said. "We have stretched law enforcement to the very edge. We needs those beds."

Rollin Cook, chief deputy in charge of the county jail, said the jail is "busting at the seams" and will soon have to start releasing class B misdemeanor offenders, like those charged with DUI in justice court. If things continue to deteriorate, Cook said, the jail will have to violate judges' orders and release offenders ordered to jail by district court judges.

Kennard has been scrambling to keep the council happy by pushing the alternatives to incarceration program while keeping law and order in the valley.

The council put caps on the types of inmates that can be held at the jail a year ago, and judges and police officers alike are still miffed. Now the jail will not hold any offenders with a class C misdemeanor or class B misdemeanor traffic violation, except for DUI convictions or offenders with a record of domestic violence.

In addition, county officials are using several programs to treat offenders in an attempt to reduce the recidivism rate. The Day Reporting Center (DRC) is a place where county jail inmates can swap jail time for outpatient treatment. The DRC will curb the jail population significantly because the offenders who will be moved to the substance-abuse program are those who are most likely to endure the "revolving door" of the prison system, said Gary Dalton, director of the county's criminal justice services division.

Kennard said he wanted the council to open up additional units at the jail in order to expand the Corrections Addictions Treatments Systems (CATS) program, an in-house drug treatment program highly favored by Utah judges, said Pat Fleming, director of the county's substance abuse division.

The council said it would consider opening up additional units in the future, but not now. It's still too early to see if the alternatives to incarceration programs are working, Councilman Jim Bradley said.

He said the council needs to "keep the pressure on" judges and police officers to force them to follow the council's agenda of reducing the jail population through alternatives to incarceration.

"The easiest thing to do for this community is to open another pod at the jail," Bradley said. "We really are at that crossroad on when do you let up and when don't you let up. I'm reluctant to take that pressure off."

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