Utah is not a wealthy state, but Utah and its Rocky Mountain neighbors have certainly prospered a whole lot more than the rest of the nation in recent years, says R. Thayne Robson, director of the Bureau of Economic Research at the University of Utah.
But with that prosperity, Utah also becomes an increased target for criminals, Robson warned. "Economists say as society becomes more and more wealthy there will likely be increasing attempts to acquire it by legal or illegal means."Robson's comments came Thursday during a three-day conference of the Utah Correctional Association, an organization of corrections administrators on both the state and local level. The conference addressed complex issues of the criminal justice system as they relate to AIDS and health care, drug abuse, sexual abuse, rehabilitation and enforcement.
Robson further warned that over the past 10 years Americans have become increasingly less willing to address the social problems that lead to criminal behavior. In fact, as Americans become older, they become more conservative in their "lock 'em up" attitudes.
"We are not dealing with corrections and the under-class problem in Utah or the rest of the nation," he said. "What money we're likely to get in Utah will go into bricks and mortar and not into dealing with the social problems that contribute to increasing crime rates."
The problem is neither Utah nor any other state can afford to build more and more prisons. "We are less and less tolerant of increased taxes to address these problems," he said.
Robson also said Utah corrections officials must view their situation from a national perspective, realizing that recessions in other parts of the country will have direct effects on Utah crime rates. "You are dealing with people who weren't necessarily born and raised in the communities where they committed the crimes," he said.
One particular problem that Utah corrections officials must address is increasing numbers of sexual offenders - and treating victims before they, too, become offenders, said M. Michelle Gourley, clinical director and therapist at Heritage Youth Services in Spanish Fork.
Society is poised for monstrous problems if nothing is done. Gourley said the average age of sex offenders in prison is 23 years, and the average number of victims per offender is 400.Given the fact that most sex offenders were themselves victims as children, Gourley said more must be done to treat young victims, who tend to repress feelings of anger, trauma and guilt.
And more must be done, she added, to instill in victims both a sense of empathy for the horrible crime and a sense of responsibility for their own future behavior.
Gourley has seen an increased number of teenage offenders showing up in mandated treatment programs. In one facility, there were almost as many teenage offenders as adult offenders.
And with each teenager who sexually abuses a child, the cycle inevitably will repeat itself, she said. "We are too slow to recognize the pattern of repeat pedophilia."