SALT LAKE CITY — The two departments responsible for ensuring inmates receive treatment before they exit prison say they have improved communication with each other.
That should help inmates qualify for parole and shave time from their sentences, according to administrators at the Utah Department of Corrections and the Board of Pardons and Parole.
“Now with our new electronic records system at the board, all of that information (about parole dates) is shared in real time with the Department of Corrections,” said Jennifer Yim, the director of administrative services at the Utah Board of Pardons and Parole.
FOX 13 reported in July how 67 inmates had missed their parole dates in 2023 through no fault of their own. They were not given the treatment or therapies the parole board required to qualify for early releases.
A lack of staff at Utah’s two prisons, including the Salt Lake City prison that opened in 2022 at a cost of $1 billion, were major reasons for the lack of treatment. But an audit, also completed in July, described a communications gap between Pardons and Parole and Corrections.
The former had often submitted information in formats, including PDFs or hard copies, that didn’t automatically display in Corrections’ records system. Now when Pardons and Parole requires inmates to take programs such as sex-offender or substance abuse treatment, that information is entered into a shared electronic records system that Corrections can also read. Corrections can then make plans so inmates can take the necessary therapies before their potential parole dates.
It was more than inmates seeking parole who were missing out. The audit also said the lack of programming at the prisons meant few inmates have been taking advantage of a state law that reduces prison sentences if prisoners complete education such as vocational training or earn an associate’s degree.
Rebecca Brown, a deputy executive director at Corrections who oversees programming and is a licensed social worker, said Corrections is “well on our way” to fixing all the staffing shortages, too.
“We've put a significant focus on improving our recruitment efforts and strategies around retention for therapists,” Brown said, adding that vacancies are a fraction of what they have been.
A Corrections spokesman said mandatory overtime for officers – the preferred term for guards – ended this fall. The Utah Legislature has been raising pay for corrections officers to encourage new hires. The officers play a role in treatment, too, if only to escort inmates to classrooms and providing security in them.
At $140 a day to incarcerate a Utah prison inmate, the extra time behind bars has added up.
But Corrections has been promising changes for years, said Skye Lazaro. For five years, she was an attorney representing inmates at the parole board. She’s skeptical things are different now.
“These aren't new ideas,” Lazaro said.
“The situation hasn't changed” over the years, she added, “and the Department of Corrections has not done better.”
Franklin Carroll, an inmate who had been calling FOX 13 to complain he has not been admitted into the sex offender treatment he needs to qualify for a potential 2025 parole date, called again a few weeks ago to say he still wasn’t in treatment. A Corrections spokesman said Carroll had been in housing unit that did not permit him to take the courses but has recently been moved to one where he can.