The Weber County Sheriff’s Office has pushed to upgrade its medical and mental health facilities for years. The county commission approved the 2025 budget on Dec. 17, which includes $1.8 million to design a new space, according to Weber County Comptroller Scott Parke.
Sheriff's Chief Deputy Phillip Reese noted that the population needing services in the county jail has continued to grow.
“When this building opened in 2000, the current medical cells were already woefully under-resourced for the size of the population that we serve,” he said.
Past efforts have failed, including a $62 million proposal in 2022 and a bond in 2023 that would have funded the medical upgrades in addition to improved video court services and new administrative offices.
Reese said the current facilities are overcrowded, with six medical cells and two exam rooms for a facility that houses up to 888 individuals.
The design has not been finalized, but he said it will include skylights and higher ceilings to increase natural light because “there's significant scientific study that natural light improves mental health dramatically.” If the plan is similar to last year’s bond proposal, the number of exam rooms would increase from two to seven. And Reese doesn't think they would need additional staff.
“It increases staff efficiency and effectiveness while also increasing the safety for the inmate population.”
Molly Prince, a licensed clinical social worker and director of the Utah Prisoner Advocate Network, said many jails don’t have a true mental health facility, though people with mental illness are overrepresented in prisons and jails, according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness.
“We have to start looking at jails as being part mental health facilities,” she said.
In addition to practitioners, she’d like to see advanced practice registered nurses, mental health therapists and support groups for things like medication compliance and mental health discussions.
The sheriff’s office plans to model its future expansion after the Utah State Correctional Facility’s new medical and mental health building.
Prince recently toured the Currant medical building and liked the proximity of medical rooms to housing units for easier access to care. She said inmates can move to lower-security facilities and have more interaction with others as they demonstrate progress and prepare to transition back into society.
Still, Prince is skeptical of Reese’s assertion that they wouldn’t need more staff.
“I think that's probably a great selling point to the commissioners and the taxpayers,” she said. The remodel will probably increase staff efficiency, “but they still need to add in some additional staff positions, because running our staff ragged is not conducive to good care.”
Any upgrade, Prince said, is a move in the right direction.
“The better the improvement, the longer term we won't have to improve some more.”
Reese said views of mental health in corrections have changed dramatically from the notion of “you do the crime, you do the time.”
“There is a certain population that needs to be locked away from society for society to be safe,” he said. “There's also a large part of the population that we serve that needs to have resources and support in order for them to overcome their addiction to become functioning members of society.”
Jail improvements are on the county’s list of future capital projects, but funding for them has not yet been allocated.
Macy Lipkin is a Report for America corps member who reports for KUER in northern Utah.
