Prison Reform

In 2018, Sen. Todd Weiler and I co-sponsored SB205 to require annual statewide tracking and reporting of jail deaths, after a spike in jail deaths in 2016 matching the 2014 number that ranked Utah as the state with the highest rate of in-custody deaths in the nation. This report coincided with Sen. Weiler and I reading detailed news reports that revealed a lack of reasonable care resulting in the deaths of two women, one in Davis County jail, and one in Duchesne jail. We filed separate bills and then discovered we had the same objective and combined our bills, culminating in the unanimous passage of the bill in both the Senate and the House. The bill also required a working group with the sheriffs and other stakeholders under the auspices of CCJJ.  We believed that with that data, and the legislature agreed, we could identify the problems in jails and pass legislation to fix them.  

But recently released data from the CCJJ’s report revealed that more people died in Utah jails in 2020 than in any year since 2016, despite lower jail populations attributed to COVID -19 mitigation effort. Inmate deaths in Utah trended downward for years following a series of reforms and data collection efforts following an increase in deaths in the mid-2010s. That changed in 2020 when the number of inmates dying at Utah jails and prisons increased significantly—back to the numbers that prompted Sen. Weiler and me to take action in 2018.

The 2020 report generated by the CCJJ, Commission on Criminal and Juvenile Justice based on the jails’ reporting shows suicide remains a problem in Utah jails. Federal data also shows Utah continues to outpace national averages in rates of both jail deaths and suicides.  

It is unclear whether the apparent spike in jail deaths means that reform efforts have regressed, or that, according to some studies,  mental health issues also increased during the pandemic, so it is hard to know exactly how the coronavirus—and mitigation efforts—may have impacted jail suicide rates that year. Still, it is alarming that people are dying in our county jails, regardless of the cause, when most who die have only been charged with a crime, not convicted. In fact, 80 percent of the population of county jails are filled with people who have not been convicted of a crime. They have been arrested and are awaiting trial, yet they are dying. Withdrawal is one of several common dangers for inmates. Opiate and suicide are linked. Some inmates have been forced to detox without any services or help, as was the one who died in the Duchesne Jail in 2017.  

Suicide was the leading cause of death in county jails, in at least eight out of 20 cases, the report shows. It remains the most prevalent cause of death in jails since at least 2013, as far back as the report tracks data. The other deaths were labeled as either other/unknown, and alcohol/drug intoxication and illness. One was reported as an accident.

About half of the people who died in jails did so after being there 14 days or less, including two people who died the same day they were booked. Again, the majority weren’t convicted of any crimes. 

Besides the tragedy and trauma for families of those who die, it is has a traumatic effect on those officers who work in jails, to find someone dead in their cell, or as in a recent case at the Davis County jail when an incarcerated person threw himself over a railing and fell to his death. And beyond the human aspect of a family losing a son, daughter, husband, or wife, the liability to the jail can be enormous. Take the Davis County case from 2016 when a woman who had been booked for possession of drugs and the man with her escaped. She fell off her bunk that night and ruptured her spleen and she did not get reasonable care or examination, despite being in excruciating pain. She was 28 and the mother of two young girls. Her mother didn’t know she had been jailed until they called from the hospital to report she had died. In July of this year, a jury awarded her mother $10 million after finding that her daughter was denied medical care while an inmate at the Davis County jail and died as a result. (It was in December 2016 when Heather Ashton Miller, 28, fell from her top bunk at the jail and ruptured her spleen, nearly splitting it in two, according to the state medical examiner.)

Last month, an inmate died by suicide at the Davis County on Sept 15, the second man in the jail that week to die by suicide. Both men were in their 40’s. To their credit, Davis Jail now has protocols to evaluate and provide support for mental health issues and support from a clinical social worker. That same week, another man died in his cell at the Millard County jail that week who was found alone and unresponsive in his cell.

This year alone seven inmates have died in Utah jails.  

What can we as policy makers do?  

In conjunction with a meeting Sen. Weiler and I had last week with Paul Ray who is now the assistant director of legislative affairs for the Utah Dept. of Health and Human Services, we have some initial ideas that would require funding to get more mental health professionals to jails, especially rural county jails, which could include telehealth screenings, mobile crisis or mental health professionals who could visit jails once or twice a week. We don’t have any specific figures yet, but we will have an appropriations request or legislation with a fiscal note for the 2023 session.  

Our purpose is not to cast blame on the county sheriffs who oversee the jails and the men and women who work there, but to find a way to provide them with mental health and addiction specialists who can better evaluate and diagnose those with suicidal ideation or who are at high risk from detoxing from drugs. We have met with Paul Ray, the Assistant Director of Legislative Affairs for the Utah Department of Health and Human Services. We plan to meet with Brent Kelsey and other state experts who have worked for years in this area and will be guided by their recommendations as well as representative of the Sheriffs’ Association and other stakeholders who work in this area every day.