Utah’s prisons will run out of room in about three years. At the Sentencing Commission’s September 2 meeting, Utah Department of Corrections Deputy Commissioner Spencer Turley said the state expects to reach “one in, one out” around 2028 or 2029. The new sentencing guidelines will move that date closer, adding an estimated 195 to 390 prison admissions, as Libertas Institute explained this week.
State law already says what happens next. Under Utah Code 64-13-38, once the prisons stay above 98% of its beds for 45 days, the department and the Board of Pardons and Parole build a list of inmates to release until the population falls to 96.5%. The law sets how many go home. It does not say who.
That choice should not wait for an emergency. Utah can make it now, through the credit people earn toward release.
A person’s crime does not settle how they will do after prison. What they do with their time inside matters too. Education programs cut the odds of returning to prison by 43%, as Libertas Institute noted this week. Vocational training raised the odds of finding work after release by 28% in the same RAND review.
Minnesota’s corrections department studied people released from its prisons in 2007 and 2008. Those who earned a college degree inside worked more hours, earned more, and were less likely to reoffend than similar people who did not. A high school diploma helped people find work but did not reduce reoffending on its own.
That is the case for earned credit, whatever the offense. Judges and the Board of Pardons and Parole, applying the guidelines, decide how long a sentence is. Earned credit lets the person serving it move that date up. People who do the work leave earlier and are more likely to succeed. People who don’t stay in longer. Release follows evidence of change, not a bed count.
Today that incentive is weak. Mandatory credit in Utah tops out at eight months, however much a person accomplishes. Expanding credit for education and job training, and scaling it to what a program achieves, would give people a real reason to start and finish.
Minnesota’s results also show that programs differ. As Jason Chipman wrote this month, Utah does not track what its sentences accomplish. Credit should go to programs shown to reduce reoffending, and the state should measure whether they do.
The prisons will fill up either way. Utah can decide now that the people who leave first are the ones who earned it.
