The Utah Legislature is set to meet Wednesday to vote on building a new prison in the northwest part of Salt Lake City, marking what could be the end of a quarrelsome and controversial selection process.
It has long been our position that Utah’s correctional system should conform to world-class correctional standards, with the primary emphasis on the rehabilitation of inmates. Any new prison facility should allow for a seamless transition for inmates, for those who work at the facility, and for the families of inmates. The new facility should be convenient for the many providers of social and medical services and other programs as well as the large number of volunteers who help provide educational services and pastoral care.
The current site possesses many of these desired characteristics. Consequently, it continues to disappoint us that this process began with the directive to find a new prison site. The prevailing influence in that decision was the concept that the sale and development of the Draper land where the prison currently sits would ostensibly fund the lion’s share of the new facility’s costs. On-site rebuilding, it was argued, would have required a sizable public investment, although we are still not convinced that anything but a token analysis of that option was explored.
And full relocation may still require significant public investment. The nature of the two potential sites selected in Salt Lake City may hike up the estimated $550 million cost of a new facility. There are clear environmental concerns, and it is fully appropriate for Salt Lake City to take independent legal action to see to it those concerns have been properly assessed and will be properly dealt with.
But the process has now brought the Legislature to a special session with some constrained choices. As the Legislature now makes a generational decision, we reiterate that its primary charge should be to provide humane treatment of the incarcerated and the support they need to fundamentally turn their lives around. Even as they balance core imperatives of safety and affordability, we urge legislators to keep top of mind the prison’s proximity to qualified correctional staff, medical care, social services, trained volunteers, spiritual advisers and especially to family. Many of the options open to them have tried to meet these criteria.
This is more than a technocratic decision. How Utah’s lawmakers address the needs of “the least of these” among us — even those who have put themselves outside the law — reflects on how well we are meeting a collective commitment to the worth and dignity of every person and each person’s innate potential to change and contribute. To that end, it is time for a civil and data-driven deliberation and decision on how to provide a safe, modern, affordable and accessible facility.