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| Crackdown planned in wake of prison violence in Utah |
| By The Salt Lake Tribune |
| Published: 02/26/2001 |
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Determined to thwart gang violence at the Utah State Prison, corrections officials and prosecutors plan to get tough on inmates caught stashing knives or other deadly weapons. State law allows Utah prosecutors to charge weapon-packing prisoners with a second-degree felony, an offense that could tack an extra 1 to 15 years on a convict's stay behind bars. But the stiff penalty is seldom pursued by prosecutors busy charging defendants not already behind bars. Enforcement of the contraband law is suddenly paramount, however, as prison officials wrestle with how to quell tensions sparked by a bloody brawl last month between two rival gangs. Five prisoners were stabbed during a Jan. 24 melee and another suffered a broken ankle, prompting a two-week lock-down at prisons in Draper and Gunnison. The full-scale lock-down was lifted last week for about half of the 4,400 prisoners affected and ended systemwide last week, Corrections spokesman Jack Ford said. However, about one-third of the prisons' inmates remain under restrictions that limit the amount of time they spend outside their cells. Some inmates will have shorter out-of-cell recreation times for an indefinite time, Ford said. Prison officials acknowledge future assaults in retaliation for the stabbings are likely. But they hope recent cell-to-cell searches for weapons and stricter enforcement of existing laws force inmates to think twice before seeking revenge. Salt Lake County District Attorney David Yocom, whose office has jurisdiction over Draper, the state's largest prison, indicated his office has rarely pursued criminal charges against inmates hoarding weapons, because almost none of the resulting attacks were fatal. But after conversations with Corrections brass and the present hostile climate at Utah's prisons, Yocom professed: 'We've got to be more inclined to look at it from the prison's vantage point or disciplinary system.' The emphasis appears to have shifted to a virtual zero tolerance for weapons, whether inmates use them in an attack or not. Utah's Board of Pardons and Parole could also consider any gang activity while in prison when deciding whether or not to release an inmate, Ford said. |
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