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Sam Penrod Reporting The governor is switching the positions of three top leaders in the state's criminal justice system. The shake-up comes after a scathing legislative audit revealed that many corrections employees believed they answered to no one.
The director of the Department of Corrections is out after a long career in the department. And the governor is bringing in a new director from the outside, assigned to 'correct' Corrections.
It's the agency that oversees Utah's prison system and all of the inmates in state custody. But a legislative audit issued last month found within the Utah Department of Corrections, employee morale is low and there is a culture of unfairness and favoritism.
Now Tom Patterson is being re-assigned from the state's Commission on Criminal and Juvenile Justice, and is now charged with changing the image of the Department of Corrections. The change comes as the prison faces an ever growing inmate population and fighting for more funding from state lawmakers to deal with it.
Outgoing Corrections director Scott Carver has been re-assigned to head Utah's Sentencing Commission, where the governor believes his abilities can be used. Patterson faces the job of coming in from the outside and making changes to a department that has a reputation being a 'good ol boys' network.
State lawmakers are ordering another legislative audit a year from now on the Department of Corrections to see if there are improvements to the problems recently discovered.
Patterson began working today but was unavailable to talk to us about his vision for Corrections.
He will officially take over if he is confirmed by the State Senate.
