Legislation would prevent some jail releases due to overcrowding
Feb 6, 2025, 8:40 PM | Updated: Feb 7, 2025, 9:01 am
FILE - The Salt Lake County Jail in South Salt Lake is pictured on Monday, Nov. 16, 2020. (KSL TV)
(KSL TV)
SALT LAKE CITY — Jail overcrowding is addressed by one of the bills in front of Utah lawmakers on Capitol Hill right now. HB312 would prevent some suspects from being released from jail if they haven’t been seen by a judge.
Bill sponsor Rep. Karianne Lisonbee, R-Clearfield, said right now, nearly 11 people are released from jail, per day, because of overcrowding. And Lisonbee said they are released without ever seeing a judge.
“If you look at 2023 in Salt Lake County, there were over 4,000 overcrowding releases, people that never saw a judge,” Lisonbee said. “Among those were over 1,000 felonies that were released without ever seeing a judge. And then these people go out in the community and they commit more and more crimes. [In] 2024, the same thing, 3,947 overcrowding releases.”
Bill weighs jail overcrowding against certain crimes
Lisonbee said her bill would stop that by preventing jails from releasing prisoners who are accused of certain crimes or who have been arrested repeatedly on suspicion of multiple crimes.
“If you’ve been convicted or arrested of a criminal offense, if you’ve been arrested for a drug offense that’s a felony, if you’ve been arrested for having fentanyl … if you’ve been arrested for a DUI that’s resulted in serious bodily injury or death of an individual.”
Utah House Majority Whip Karianne Lisonbee, R-Clearfield, speaks as the Utah House majority announces the 2025 policy priorities at a press conference at the Capitol in Salt Lake City on Monday, Jan. 13, 2025. (Scott G. Winterton, Deseret News)
“And … if you’ve been arrested or convicted within the 30-day previous period; if you’ve been arrested under the habitual offender language that’s in the bill. All of those things now you cannot get released for overcrowding.”
Repeated arrests, multiple crimes
The bill also weighs jail overcrowding with people who have been arrested repeatedly on suspicion of multiple crimes.
“…We’re seeing a large amount of crimes committed by a small amount of people. For that language, we’re saying for the habitual offender, we want to find out what’s going on. What is creating this pattern of criminal behavior? So, you need to be held.”
Lisonbee said suspects can still be released for pre-trial agreements and for some other things, just not if they meet any of the conditions listed in the bill.
She said the bill would also force jails to send inmates to other counties if overcrowding leaves them with insufficient beds to house these suspects.
“For these purposes now in the bill, they would have to contract with another county jail if they don’t have space in their own county to house their prisoners as well. So Salt Lake County has some options. There’s some jail bed capacity statewide that they could utilize in a contract with another county.”
“I think they can immediately stand up or vacate through moving contracts elsewhere about 500 beds and with those beds, I think they’ll be able to handle the majority of the inmates that are brought and booked to the county jail each day.”
Salt Lake County Sheriff Rosie Rivera speaks in an interview on Monday, April 1, 2024, at the DA’s office in Salt Lake City. (Scott G Winterton/Deseret News)
Salt Lake County Sheriff Rosie Rivera told Utah’s Morning News this bill would have a significant financial impact on the Salt Lake County Jail.
“Our jail has been at capacity for a very long time and we really just need more space to make things work,” she said. “We will have to start contracting our prisoners to other jails before we can do overcrowding releases.”
Last November, voters in Salt Lake County rejected a half-a-billion-dollar bond that would have allowed the county to increase its jail capacity.
