10 state inmates are returned to Daggett County Jail

State corrections officials have put 10 prison inmates back in the beleaguered Daggett County Jail, the first to return since two convicted murderers escaped from the rural Utah facility in September.

The inmates began arriving at the Daggett County Jail on Thursday, Utah Department of Corrections director Tom Patterson told the Deseret Morning News.

"They have addressed the critical security issues," he said of Daggett County officials. "They will continue to do that, and we're providing training for them."

Gradually, state corrections officials plan to put up to 60 inmates back in the Daggett County Jail. Originally, the Utah Department of Corrections had housed approximately 80 inmates there under a $1.3 million contract. Patterson said he refused to put any inmates in a building in the jail yard called "the greenhouse," saying there is no way to provide adequate security. It previously housed up to 20 inmates.

All of the state's inmates were yanked when convicted killers Danny Gallegos and Juan Diaz-Arevalo escaped from the medium security jail on Sept. 23. A review of the jail found so many security lapses that Patterson said he feared more inmates would escape.

On Thursday, Patterson would not go into details about the changes in security but said he was happy with the upgrades and adjustments.

"We would not have returned a single inmate had they not addressed those security concerns," he said.

Daggett County has hired a new jail commander, a former warden at the Central Utah Correctional Facility in Gunnison. It also has beefed up staffing at the jail to the minimum requirements of the Utah Department of Corrections.

Patterson said he has sent state corrections officials to the jail to conduct training on procedures.

"It's standard training," he said. "Protocol, handling inmate counts, inmate crisis situations, different drills, scenarios, that sort of training."

Daggett County Sheriff Rick Ellsworth did not immediately return phone calls seeking comment Thursday.

The inmates being placed in the Daggett County Jail are not convicted killers like Diaz-Arevalo and Gallegos. Instead, Patterson categorized them as people who have been convicted of second- and third-degree felonies and who soon will have the possibility of parole.

"These are inmates that have exhibited, as far as inmates go, a level of trust and good conduct," he said. "That's why they're in the spot that they are."