The specifics don't seem to matter.
Whether it's jail beds or prison beds, adult criminals or youth offenders, state inmates or federal prisoners, the bottom line is always the same. Utah doesn't have enough places to put criminals it wants to keep off the streets.Maybe that's why the idea of asking the federal government to build a federal prison in Utah seemed so appealing to so many state and local officials at Sen. Orrin Hatch's crime summit Monday.
The Republican says he'd do his best to bring the prison to Utah, if Utah residents want it.
And while most local officials say they'd like to see a federal prison in the Beehive State, they warn any facility built by the feds must have detention space.
The distinction seems like a focus on semantics, but it's not. It's similar to the comparison between county jails and the state prison.
Most prisoners at the jail are waiting to stand trial. That's the way it is at a federal detention center.
Most of those at the state prison have had their day in court and have been sentenced. That's the way it is at a federal prison.
State officials hope the Western facility under consideration by federal officials will have both types of beds.
State Board of Pardons Chairman Mike Sibbett says there are more than 200 inmates serving time at the state prison who are in the country illegally. Those prisoners could serve their time in a federal prison at the expense of the federal government, instead of taking up space in Utah's prisons at Utah taxpayers' expense, he says.
"It has to have a federal detention component, too," Sibbett said of a federal prison.
He says the federal government should build and run a federal prison and detention center here instead of trying to rent county jail or prison beds.
That sentiment was echoed at the crime summit by Lt. Gov. Olene Walker after U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno announced the federal government would rent 200 percent more jail beds for federal prisoners than are currently being leased.
"We want new federal beds to be new brick and mortar," she said. "We're fearful these beds will come from beds we're already using to house (state) criminals."
That fear is already a reality, Sibbett says.
Tuesday, the Davis County Jail began renting beds to the federal government instead of the Utah State Prison.
"Those beds were all full," Sibbett said. "The people who were in those beds were the overflow from the state prison."
And Sibbett says he doesn't blame Davis County officials, because the federal government pays about $20 more per day per inmate for the jail beds - whether the bed is occupied or not.
For years Utah prison officials have avoided triggering a state law that mandates they release inmates once they hit operational capacity for 45 consecutive days. They've never triggered the emergency-release provision, in large part, because they've rented nearly every available jail bed in the state.
And most of the problems local law enforcement officers cite involve illegal immigrants who commit drug crimes.
Utahns also want the Immigration and Naturalization Service to step up efforts to deport those who are here illegally, whether they commit crimes or not.
Detention beds would help alleviate both problems, as police currently have nowhere to house those whose offenses don't warrant space at the county jail but need to be detained until INS can deport them.
Local officials say it does little good to fight over the same beds - which they point out are all already full.
"We could support a regional federal detention and facility," Sibbett said. "It would simply add an element to our criminal justice system that we don't have."
Salt Lake County Sheriff Aaron Kennard has another suggestion.
"I think the best bang for their buck is to put another pod in our jail and contract with us to run it," he said.
That would cost $16 million to build and would give federal officials 522 beds for both sentenced inmates and those just arrested and waiting for trial, he says.
But Kennard says he's also supportive of efforts to build a prison - which federal officials estimate would house 1,100 inmates from several states.
None of the state or county officials at the summit opposed the idea of a federal prison in Utah. And Hatch called the opportunity an honor.
But even though no one is quite sure of Utah's chances of landing a prison that Congress hasn't even agreed to build yet, the prospect has Utah officials feeling better already.