RYAN GEORG
Special to the Universe
The new jail in Spanish Fork will be completed this month and will be in operation by June 1, despite the lack of public support for funding of the jail, county officials said.
Providing 536 beds, the new Spanish Fork jail will temporarily solve the mounting problem of jail overcrowding in Utah County, which was sued by the American Civil Liberties Union for housing too many criminals, county officials said.
The jail will change criminals' perceptions, who see the present jail as a revolving door, allowing them to commit petty crimes and serve little or no jail time, law enforcement officials said.
The jail was built in response to Utah's dramatic increase in crime. According to FBI reports, while the rest of the United States experienced a two percent decrease in crime in 1995, Utah in general experienced a 17.5 percent increase.
Officials from Salt Lake and Utah counties attribute much of this increase to consent decree releases, which free less dangerous criminals when jails become overcrowded.
'We have a severely overcrowded jail,' said Owen Quarnberg, the Utah County Jail commander of the Provo jail, which holds an average of 250 to 260 criminals a day.
The result, said Quarnberg, is that criminals 'are not getting the kind of sentence that they deserve.'
According to David Gardner of the Utah County Commission, many criminals in this county must currently make appointments three months in advance to serve time in jail. And often judges don't sentence criminals to jail terms at all.
'I think judges under these circumstances are looking for alternate programs to incarceration,' said Judge Lynn Davis of the Provo 4th District Court.
According to Quarnberg, some of the alternate programs being implemented right now in the county include community service programs, like picking up trash along the freeway; electronic monitoring, where criminals are restricted to house arrest; and employment programs, where criminals are permitted to work during the day and sleep in the jail at night.
This soft approach to criminal justice has lessened the deterrent for petty crimes in Utah as a whole. Quarnberg said, 'the word is out on the street that you can commit petty crimes and not go to jail.'
The new county jail will provide enough room to send prisoners immediately to jail, Davis said. This will establish a more meaningful deterrent for petty crimes in the county.
The greatest obstacle in getting the jail in Spanish Fork up and running has been providing the funds for staffing. According to Josephine Zimmerman of the Daily Herald, $2.6 million is needed.
The motion to raise taxes for the jail was voted down last year in a referendum at which only 4.5 percent of registered Utah County voters participated, Zimmerman said. A vote to raise taxes would have overridden Senate Bill 254, which was passed by the Utah State Senate to prevent the raising of county and city taxes during the 1996 tax year.
However, with Senate Bill 254 expiring on Dec. 31, the Utah County Commission will be able to raise property taxes to fund the staffing of the Spanish Fork jail among other things. Several Utah County citizens gathered Tuesday at the public hearing of the County Commission to discuss the 1997 budget and express their concerns over the unpopular tax increase.
Utah's dramatic increase in crime stems from the lack of jail space, said Judge Michael Hutchings of the Salt Lake County 3rd District Court. Overcrowded jails force law enforcement officials to allow consent decree releases on criminals who are considered less dangerous -- including drug dealers, shop lifters, drunk drivers and prostitutes. In Salt Lake County, hundreds of criminals are arrested and released several times without serving significant time in jail.
Hutchings explains the process as follows: '(criminals) commit a crime, receive a citation, fail to appear in court, a warrant is issued for non-appearance, the defendant is caught and released, only to commit another crime with a continuation of the same cycle.'
The result of this cycle, according to Hutchings, is that Salt Lake County has become a paradise for criminals, attracting them from all over North America.
These criminals do not limit themselves to the big city. 'There's no doubt that there is a spill-over effect from Salt Lake City,' Quarnberg said.
Hutchings' solution to the swelling crime rate is to do away with consent decree release by building more jails. He said, 'We absolutely must obtain more jail space ... continually playing 'catch up' regarding jail space could spell disastrous consequences.'
When will Utah County need another jail? 'It will be two or three years before the new county jail becomes overcrowded,' Quarnberg said.