H.B. 39 Prison and Jail Standards Amendments: transcript

Thank you. Uh, I appreciate, uh, not adjourning. Thank you very much. It's very kind of you. Um, I am curious as to Senator Musselman. Uh, I believe he does have a, a bill in my committee tomorrow afternoon. I'm looking forward to that. Um, but no, this one in, in real life. This one is, uh, is uh, one of our committee bills from the interim. And oh, incidentally, the good senator, uh, is the Senate sponsor. So yes, that's good. Um, it requires, it's pretty simple. It requires, uh, a sheriff or, uh, jail manager of any kind to ensure, uh, that we have a system of independently administered standards and that we're checking, like this is making sure that, uh, we have a regular inspection schedule. Now almost all of our jails are doing this or some form of it. Uh, this standardizes it in the code. Make sure that we can, uh, communicate that properly to folks that are in the public. And you know, what those standards should be? Um, there are different, uh, standard organizations throughout the country that, that oversee these. We're not dictating one or the other. They have the freedom to do that. And we're just, uh, making sure that we have that there in place and, and, uh, that those are, uh, those standards and those, uh, reviews or public. Happy to answer any questions if there are any.

Liz Couch. I'm the Criminal Justice Policy Director at CCJJ. We appreciate the sponsor on this bill and, and, uh, and have voted to support it as well.

Yeah. Thank you, Senator. My name's Tracy Glover. I'm the Kane County Sheriff and the President of the Utah Sheriff's Association. Uh, I just wanna thank, uh, Representative Wilcox, the sponsor for working with the Sheriff's Association on this bill. We're not opposed to it. We can support it based on the fact that, uh, as he mentioned, this sheriff's across the state are already in compliance with this. We are constantly and continually working on our standards and inspection process, and, uh, and we're, we're in a reiteration of that right now, which is about complete. When that gets done, we'll review it against this statute, make sure that we're in compliance. Um, but we, we don't see this as a problem for us to achieve. So we, we would support it. Thank you.

Thank you, sheriff. Thanks for your service. And, um, I do appreciate, uh, your statement because when, uh, your prisoners or their families feel like they're mistreated, it's US legislators who you should get contacted. And I'm constantly explaining that sheriffs are independently elected. They have their own authority, they have their own jurisdiction, and it's not necessarily my job to step on their toes, but I'll get less phone calls if, uh, you know, if, if standards are adhered to.

Hi. Yeah. I'm Audrey Baran from Salt Lake City. Um, and this is actually the bill I came to speak about. I spoke in the House Interim Committee as well, and I, uh, support the bill. Um, I, I know it's not question and answer time, but I did wanna point out that the bill, um, envisions an independent auditor. And it's not clear to me from the bill who that would be if the Department of Corrections and the, the individual Sheriff's Departments put out a bid and, and hire a qualified person. But the idea that it's an independent auditor is important that it sounds like it would not be a Department of Corrections or a sheriff's employee. So that is something that is sort of unclear to me from the bill that I would appreciate explanation. Um, but I wanted to offer my support. I'm an attorney and I work in correctional oversight. Um, and so I just wanted to offer a couple of points in support of the, the bill. Obviously, we have a obligation to ensure that incarcerated people serve their sentences, um, under the most humane conditions possible. I also wanted to point out though that correctional oversight is important for correctional officers. That conditions in prisons and jails that affect incarcerated people also affect our correctional officers. When a prison is too hot, when a prison is overcrowded, it is correctional officers who are also in that environment and having to work under those conditions, uh, and sort of deal with the after effects of those, those conditions. So that's an important thing to keep in mind. I also wanted to point out that there are potential cost saving measures for the state and doing correctional oversight when a state has robust independent auditing or monitoring of its jails and prisons that is important for preventing potential litigation, for preventing potential federal oversight, things like that. Um, so I support this bill and, um, with, with the one caveat that I, I think it's a little unclear in the bill who the auditor would be. Um, and that is all. Thank you.

Not sure about that. Not least thing, but yeah. I'm Seth Stewart. Just, uh, uh, I had the same concern essentially, that that independent oversight body is not identified as never defined within the text of the bill. And I would just submit keeping that as open as possible for, for to, to have, um, you know, co correction, collaboration, oversight from essentially as many diverse interests that have this to, in their best interest as possible, would be ideal, rather than just a single kind of nebulous, uh, who knows who it is. And, uh, you know, the court, I, I think courts should have, uh, an ability to do this. I, I ultimately, I'm just thinking of the principle of popular sovereignty, like the people themselves. We need the ability to be able to review what's actually happening there and, and have that oversight. Um, anyways, just invite some consideration that, thank you.

Any volunteers? Senator Baldry That we pass House Bill 39 Prison and jail standards amendments to the full body of the Senate.

Sure. I mean, I, in some ways we intentionally didn't identify, um, exactly who or what entity that should be. Um, independent oversight I'm insured by our attorneys, um, alone allows that to, uh, be defined as, uh, someone with the correct professional, you know, accreditation and standards that could be theoretically, you know, other professionals as long as they're outside of that agency, they're independent of the agency that they're, you know, inspecting. So there's, or that could also be others that are qualified for that, um, rather than dictating that answer. But I appreciate the motion and, and, uh, if we need to adjust that in the future, I'm happy to do that.

Adjourn. Motion adjourn. All in favor?

Thank you Mr. Speaker. This bill representatives, uh, establishes a baseline standard for our prisons and jails. Um, and frankly requires, um, an independent assessment, uh, once a year or so to make sure that, uh, we're living up to the standards that we profess.

I'll resume. Sorry. Thank you.

Thank you Mr. President Proti. Um, this is Bill is recommended by the law enforcement and Criminal Justice Interim Committee mandates that all state, um, correctional facilities and county jails operate under a system of independently administered standards to submit to regular independent inspections. They, uh, for the most part, they are adhering to, uh, the standard, but this is unifying so we're all on the same page. The exact same inspection with an independent inspection. Um, a wound moves away from quote unquote self-policing by requiring that standard independently administered inspection. Um, and it moves into a regular schedule of inspections. Insurers ongoing compliance rather than one time fixes building public trust. That's my presentation. Mr. Speaker or Mr. President Prote,

I'd move that, uh, HB 39 Prison and Jail Standard Amendments be read for a third time.

Senator Sandall. Thank You Mr. P, president ProAm, uh, motion to to table on third house Bill 39 for fiscal impact