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The Utah Department of Corrections pulled 20 inmates from the Daggett County jail Wednesday because of security lapses exposed after two murderers escaped two weeks ago.
The inmates are low-risk but were kept in a building behind the jail that could not be secured, Corrections Director Tom Patterson said. Most were transferred to the Weber County jail, he said.
The transfer of more than a fourth of the state prisoners in the jail - about a fifth of the jail's population - is permanent, Patterson said. The move amounts to a significant financial hit for Daggett County, which depends on money it gets for housing state and federal inmates to pay the bond it used to build the jail. The state pays $320,000 a year for 20 inmates.
It is unclear how Daggett County Sheriff Rick Ellsworth feels about the move - he has not returned telephone calls seeking comment since Sept. 24, the day after two murderers scaled a fence to freedom.
County Commissioner Floyd Griggs said the move was unfair.
"I have mixed emotions," Griggs said. "The state caused part of our problems, and now they're jerking the prisoners. I don't think it's all our fault."
Ellsworth is not out of the woods yet, as his jail remains on lockdown until he addresses security concerns Patterson presented to him on Tuesday. If changes are not made, Patterson said, he could pull more inmates.
On Sept. 23, Danny Martin Gallegos and Juan Carlos Diaz-Arevalo slipped through an unlocked back door as other inmates, who stayed in the outbuilding known as the "green house," entered the jail.
As the lone deputy guarding the jail's 110 inmates threw up in a bathroom, the men scaled a fence that was used in a jailbreak in 2005, walked across the roof and jumped more than 12 feet to the ground.
They lived in the outback for a week before kidnapping a man and stealing his car only to be chased down by Wyoming police on Saturday.
Two days after the escape, Patterson toured the jail and emerged perplexed by security gaps. He spoke incredulously about a door that did not lock, procedures that allowed low-risk inmates to mix with convicted murderers, a significant staffing shortage and basic infrastructure short- comings, such as cameras that did not work and a lack of fencing.
When the jail is full, Ellsworth would have to schedule all of the 10 deputies assigned to the jail to work around the clock to match state prison standards of one guard to 10 inmates.
The most recent count provided by the jail, last Friday, showed only three of 100 inmates were the county's.
Corrections, U.S. Marshals Service and U.S. Bureau of Prisons pay Daggett County about $45 a day per head to house inmates.
Corrections contracts with 21 county jails to house a fourth of its population, or about 1,500 inmates. Patterson has called for a security review of every county jail by the end of the month and said he would pull inmates if sheriffs don't agree to make changes he requests.
About 50 state inmates, and 25 federal inmates remain in Daggett County jail.