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SALT LAKE CITY — Under a new Salt Lake County Jail policy implemented this week, some people arrested for misdemeanor crimes will not be taken to jail.
Because of issues related to overcrowding, Salt Lake County Sheriff Jim Winder said the jail implemented a new policy this week regarding who the Adult Detention Facility will accept.
But Winder says the public probably won't even notice a difference because the people not being taken to jail are the same ones being released after spending only three to six hours incarcerated.
The result, he said, is a "maddening" system of officers dropping arrested people off at the jail, having the jail staff go through the time- and cost-consuming efforts of processing someone, only to release that person a few hours later due to overcrowding.
"We have got to quit focusing on low-level offenders and cycling them through the system," Winder said.
Rather than tie up resources at the jail and take officers off the streets for an extended period of time as they wait for the booking process, Winder announced Thursday that when the jail population is high — which is nearly all the time — most misdemeanor offenders won't be booked into jail.
There are five phases in the new plan, and the rules for each phase depend on how close the jail population is to capacity. The restrictions range from not accepting someone arrested on civil action, to releasing those jailed for misdemeanor crimes to "alternative release programs" or those who have already served 60 percent of their sentence.
As of Thursday, the jail was at phase 3, meaning those who commit class A misdemeanor crimes, with the exception of DUI, domestic violence crimes, child abuse, violation of a protective order or any crime that would put them on the sex/kidnapping offender registry of convicted, would not be taken to jail.
Winder says he has about 1,700 beds at the jail to work with. The total number of beds at both the main Adult Detention Facility and the Oxbow Jail is around 2,220. Winder estimates that 22 percent of the jail's population is released due to overcrowding.
It costs on average $260 to $300 to book a person into jail, Winder said. While money was not the driving factor for the policy change, it did play a role, he said.
Another consideration was the amount of time it takes to book someone. How long it takes to process someone into jail depends on how many outstanding warrants they have. The more warrants and the more dispositions a person has, the longer it takes.
The philosophy that continuing to issue warrants or arresting people multiple times until they eventually follow the law "is flawed," Winder said.
The cycle of officers driving people to jail, dropping them off, and expecting their behavior to change is not working, he said, calling the system neither "effective (nor) economically feasible."
"It is the perfect mix to cause them to go back to crime," Winder said.
The sheriff said he hopes the jail's new policy will prompt other agencies to start providing more treatment opportunities for offenders.
The Salt Lake County Sheriff's Office has also developed an app for all officers to put on their mobile devices. The app will allow officers to enter information about a person they would have normally taken to jail, but now release them until a future court date.
Winder said his office will study the statistics collected by the apps to see if the same people are being picked up and let go.
Contributing: Nicole Vowell
