The Mormon hymn "Oh Ye Mountains High" describes Utah as the land of the free. New Justice Department statistics may give new meaning to that.
Only one of every 645 Utahns was incarcerated at the end of last year. That's 3.4 times less than the national average of one of every 189 Americans in prison.On top of that, prisons in Utah were the least crowded in the nation - although room was still tight and some state prisoners were held in county jails because of overcrowding.
That's according to an annual report on prison populations released Wednesday by the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics.
It showed that Utah's incarceration rate of 155 prisoners per 100,000 residents was the fifth lowest in the nation behind North Dakota , Minnesota (100), West Virginia (106) and Maine (118).
On the other end of the scale, the states with the highest incarceration rates were Texas (636), Louisiana (530), Oklahoma (508), South Carolina (494) and Nevada (460). The national average was 387 prisoners per 100,000 residents.
The report also said Utah's prisons are considered the least crowded in the nation. Depending on which scale is used, Utah prisons were considered to be used between 84 percent and 89 percent of capacity at the end of 1994.
That was far below the average nationally of state prisons being used between 117 percent and 129 percent of capacity. Even with that, the report noted that Utah held 169 prisoners in local jails because of crowding at state facilities at the end of the year.
Utah prison officials haven't seen the report but question the conclusions concerning prison capacities.
"Part of the problem has been the way people count," said Corrections spokesman Jack Ford. "They mix apples and oranges in some of those reports."
Ford said he doesn't know if the researchers counted state-owned beds separately from those owned by county or other agencies. Another problem could be the way the report writers defined capacity, he said.
According to Utah law, Ford said Utah's prisons are at operational capacity when 90 percent of the beds are filled.
"We need to have some room to move people when two inmates get into a fight . . . destroy property . . . or riot," Ford said. He also said the report might have included infirmary beds.
If Utah prisons operate at operational capacity for more than 45 consecutive days, state law mandates that prison officials release inmates until the facilities are below operational capacity.
Ford said the department's been in danger of triggering that emergency-release law for more than a year. In an effort to avoid that, he said, they've even turned work areas into dormitories and built new beds. Officials also moved 100 inmates to Texas and added two parole release dates per month with the cooperation of the state Board of Pardons and Parole.
Ford said the prison has been so close to triggering the emergency-release law that officials have had to come up with creative ways to manipulate the numbers and the inmates to stay below that cap.
"The last thing we ever want to do is release inmates early," Ford said.
Utah prisons held 3,016 inmates at the end of 1994, up 4.4 percent from the end of 1993. That increase was relatively small - only 34th among the 50 states.
Utah's increase was also exactly half the national average of an 8.8 percent increase in state prison populations last year.
During the decade from 1984 to 1994, Utah's prison population doubled, according to the report.
But even that 101 percent increase over 10 years was relatively small compared to other states - only the 22nd largest among the states, and below the national average of a 129 percent increase during that time.
Of course during that decade, Utah added a new state prison at Gunnison to help house the growing population - which is probably a key reason its facilities are somewhat less crowded than in other states.
Overall, almost 1.5 million people were incarcerated nationally at the end of the year, a new record. State and federal prisons held about two-thirds of the total, and local jails held the other third.
More than a quarter of all federal and state inmates were in prison for drug offenses. In comparison in 1980, only 8 percent of inmates were sentenced for drug violations.