The Utah Department of Corrections is moving to a new facility in 2022.
“I’m really excited but there’s a lot of logistics and a lot of policy that has to get written before we can make that move,” said Anndrea Parrish, director of programming at UDC.
Steve Turley, special project director at UDC, said part of the goal of the new facility is to give inmates a sense of normal.
“We tried to, in many cases, get what was normal,” Turley said. “Normal for you, like go to a table and eat dinner. Not all inmates will do that but most will now go to dining halls.”
According to the Utah Division of Facilities Construction and Management, the new facility will save state taxpayers a large amount of money in the long run.
“The operation will be much more smoother because we’ve been able to plan,” Turley said. “We just didn’t think about the offenders when building this, we also [thought about] the staff that have to work here each day and so with everybody in mind, we came up with this design.”
Additionally, Turley said prison cells at the new location will meet all of the American Correctional Facility standards.