Undercover at the Utah County Jail on new season of A&E show “60 Days In”

SPANISH FORK, Utah–  The Utah County Jail is the setting of the ninth season of the A&E show “60 Days In.”

Tune into Dave and Dujanovic at 11:20 to get the Utah County Sheriff’s take.

 

The show sends volunteers undercover into prisons and jails across the country to expose any problems that might exist. 

Apprehension of the project

Utah County Sheriff Mike Smith had been approached by the production company for years before he finally decided to agree.

“It really came down to me viewing this as an opportunity to do an audit of the day-to-day operations of our facility that really I had no other way of doing to the level that ’60 Days In’ provided,” Smith said.

While he is still apprehensive about the jail’s exposure on the show, Smith said there is no other way he could have done this in-depth of an audit, at no cost to taxpayers.

“If something comes out of this that we don’t look the best in, then we’ll own it, we’ll fix it and we’ll make our facility better,” Smith stated.

However, not everyone was happy about the project. It was kept under wraps, under the guise of a different kind of documentary. Smith says only a few people knew what was truly going on. Now that everyone knows, the reaction from those working in the jail is mixed.

“I have employees who are supportive. And of course, I have a small number who weren’t too happy about it, and that’s understandable,” Smith said. “At the end of the day, I think that our desire, our goal, to improve the facility outweighs any of that.”

Problems exposed; change on the way

Smith says they are already making changes based on what they learned from the experiment. As to what those changes are, Smith says people are just going to have to watch to find out. The new season premieres May 30 on A&E. 

Related:

• Prison populations are rising locally and nationally
• How staffing shortages impact the Utah State Prison
• Police: man deliberately ran truck into officer weeks after death of Santaquin police Sgt.