Salt Lake County boosts jail beds to ease overcrowding

Salt Lake County judges on Tuesday pledged to pursue alternative sentencing for lesser and one-time offenders, and in return, Salt Lake County Council members unanimously agreed to open up 128 jail beds they had eliminated two years ago.

Opening the beds gives judges the ability to jail criminals who have been routinely released because of overcrowding.

"In Salt Lake County, criminals who are quite experienced people know they won't be accountable. They know they get booked and leave," said Judge Robert Hilder, presiding judge of Utah's 3rd District Court. "We need accountability."

The jail is so overcrowded that Salt Lake County Sheriff Jim Winder routinely releases inmates ahead of schedule.

However, some of those inmates are released because of the County Council's commitment to alternatives to jail time, such as drug treatment and counseling. The council won't allow Winder to 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.

But judges believe it takes a combination of jail time and treatment options to truly rehabilitate an offender.

"Where judges start to get frustrated is treatment without accountability is failed treatment," Hilder said. "These are people who, without sanctions, will never follow through."

The council started forcing the issue of alternatives to jail time more than two years ago, when it ordered five units at the jail closed and mandated alternatives to incarceration.

Only two units were actually shut down, but that was enough to put law-enforcement officials on edge. On Tuesday, District Attorney Lohra Miller said the jail-bed level has been so low that "the safety of our community is in jeopardy."

The criminal justice system is based upon the premise that offenders are told to comply or they will "suffer a punishment," Miller said before the council's vote. "We can't do that any more," she added. "We can't hold a straight face and tell them they are going to be accountable."

The council decided to bring jail-bed levels back to where they were more than two years ago, at 1,850 beds. The sheriff will have to come back with a budget adjustment, and the council members said they would approve it.