Key Findings
- The Black-White imprisonment disparity in Utah prisons fell 54%, from 13-to-1 to 6-to-1, during the period from 2000 to 2019. The largest disparity reduction occurred in imprisonment for property offenses, with the rate for Black adults declining by 77% while the rate for White adults dropped by 37%.
- Changes in prison admissions were the primary drivers of the disparity reduction, while changes in length of stay also contributed. The overall admissions rates fell by 64% and 22% for Black and White adults, respectively, during the study period.
- Statutory changes to sentencing appeared to have had less effect on disparity. Analysis indicates that two statutes—one that adjusted penalties for aggravated assault and another that adjusted penalties for drug trafficking crimes—had statistically detectable but small effects.
Research by the Council on Criminal Justice Pushing Toward Parity project shows that the gap between Black and White state imprisonment rates nationwide has narrowed significantly since the start of the 21st century. To better understand the trends and identify policies and practices that may drive them, the Council chose 12 states for closer investigation.
This brief on Utah outlines the key state disparity trends, summarizes the potential influences on them, and statistically assesses the impact of those influences on the trends.
Notes
Although this brief acknowledges trends and factors from the pre-study period of 2000 to 2009, the scope of the analyses is limited to circumstances present in the state between 2010 and 2019. This brief also acknowledges potential disparity trend factors that implicate variables beyond the scope of this brief. For more details on methodology, framing considerations, and limitations, see the supplemental methodology report.
Click here for an overview of Utah's resident and prison population demographics.
GLOSSARY
- Disparity ratios are a measure that compares imprisonment rates across two groups of people. A Black-White imprisonment disparity ratio of 3-to-1, for example, means that Black adults are incarcerated at three times the rate of White adults. A ratio of one indicates no difference between the two groups, or “parity.” A disparity ratio lower than one means that Black adults are less likely to experience imprisonment than White adults.
- New court commitments refer to prison admissions that result from a conviction for a new crime rather than for violations of community supervision.
- Rates are calculated per 100,000 respective adults. For example, the Black imprisonment rate is calculated per 100,000 Black adults. All rates refer to adult state prison populations; those in federal prisons and local jails are excluded.
- Parity refers to a disparity ratio of 1 (1-to-1).
Racial Disparities in Utah
Between 2000 and 2019, the overall Black-White imprisonment rate disparity1 in Utah fell by 54%, from 13-to-1 to 6-to-1. This decrease was led by a drop in the property crime disparity ratio, followed by a decrease in the violent crime disparity ratio (Figure 1). The drop in Black-White disparity in nonviolent offense categories led to the majority of Utah’s imprisoned population being held for violent crimes by 2019.
Figure 1: Black and White Imprisonment Rate Disparity Ratios by Major Offense Category, 2000–2020
Between 2000 and 2019, the overall Black imprisonment rate declined by 61%, from 3,238 per 100,000 to 1,279 per 100,000 (Figure 2). The largest absolute offense-specific decrease occurred in the number of Black people convicted of violent crimes, which fell by 807 per 100,000 population and accounted for nearly half of the decrease in the overall Black imprisonment rate. The largest relative offense-specific decrease occurred for Black people convicted of property crimes, as their rate fell by 77%, followed closely by a 75% drop in the Black drug offense imprisonment. The White imprisonment rate also fell during this period, but it fell by smaller amounts than the Black rate. For example, the overall White rate fell by 14%, compared to the 61% drop for the Black rate. The White drug and property offense imprisonment rates had the largest relative decreases (40% and 37%, respectively). The White violent crime imprisonment rate rose by 7%, compared to a 51% decrease in the Black rate.
Figure 2: Black and White Imprisonment Rates by Major Offense Category, 2000–2020
Because of these differential growth rates, the race-specific composition of the prison population changed. By the end of the study period, the majority of both Black and White incarcerated populations in Utah were held for violent crimes. In 2000, about 49% of the Black and 44% of the White incarcerated population were held for violent crimes; by 2019, the shares increased to 59% and 56%, respectively (Figure 3). The increase in shares of people incarcerated for violent crimes occurred because of larger decreases in imprisonment rates for nonviolent offenses (Figure 2). For example, the share of Black people being held for drug offenses fell from 22% in 2000 to 14% in 2019; this share fell from 23% to 16% over the same time period for White people.
Figure 3: Shares of Incarcerated Population by Race, 2000 and 2019
Disparity in Prison Admissions and Length of Stay
From 2010 to 2019, Utah’s changes in racial disparities can be primarily attributed to decreases in prison admission rates for both the Black and White population; shifts in expected length of stay showed a much smaller effect. For example, Black drug admissions fell by 77% (Figure 4), a slightly larger decrease than the 74% drop in the Black drug imprisonment rate. Length of stay for Black people convicted of drug offenses increased, and this partially offset the reducing effect of the decrease in the Black drug admission rate. This pattern held across offense categories for the Black incarcerated population, indicating that change in the Black admission rates accounted for more of the change in the Black imprisonment rate than did change in expected length of stay.
Figure 4: Change in Admission Rates and Length of Stay by Race and Offense Category, 2000–2019
Potential Disparity Trend Factors
Utah has a fairly small prison population compared to surrounding states. But from 2000 to 2014, the prison population increased 18%, rising from 5,500 to 7,000. Projections indicated that the number of people in Utah prisons would increase another 37% in the next 20 years should this growth trajectory continue.2 This anticipated growth prompted state leaders to conduct an analysis of the prison population drivers through the Justice Reinvestment Initiative, with a focus on sentencing and release policy. Conducted in 2014, the Justice Reinvestment Initiative analysis yielded a report detailing findings as well as recommendations to reduce the use of incarceration, increase access to community-based alternatives, and improve supervision practices for those on parole and probation.
Political Context
Republicans held the governor’s office and majorities in the Utah House of Representatives and Senate throughout the entirety of the study period. In 2014, Governor Gary Herbert spearheaded the examination of the rising prison population and the prospect of a new state prison when he requested technical assistance through the Justice Reinvestment Initiative. This led to passage of HB 348, which adjusted penalties for drug trafficking offenses.
Practice Reforms
In addition to statutory changes developed through the Justice Reinvestment Initiative effort, several stakeholders identified multiple changes in practice that occurred during the study period. Stakeholders also frequently noted that some changes to policies in corrections, probation, and parole began in 2014, prior to the final passage of Justice Reinvestment Initiative legislation in 2015. Probation and parole made many of the practice changes seen in Utah during the study period. As early as 2008, the probation and parole subdepartment of the Utah Department of Corrections began shifting to individualized case planning for people on supervision, rather than focusing on conditions of supervision. As the Justice Reinvestment Initiative went into effect, probation and parole officials implemented a risk and needs assessment tool, leading to further changes in officer training and shifts in how people were being supervised upon release from prison. Another change was made in 2018, when HB 291 adjusted supervision length guidelines to allow for decreased supervision time. During the study period, corrections and probation and parole staff also began receiving training called Outward Mindset, which aims to broaden the perspectives used in decision-making. Despite the sentencing and release policy changes adopted as a result of Justice Reinvestment Initiative, stakeholders reported that some criminal justice agencies began to adopt practices that counteracted these reforms, including those related to charging decisions and policing practices. In addition, while Justice Reinvestment Initiative findings showed significant gaps in mental health and substance use disorder treatment for those involved in the justice system, funding for alternatives and support services did not materialize as anticipated. Initially, stakeholders expected that Medicaid expansion would cover treatment costs and expand access for directly impacted individuals, however, Medicaid expansion was not approved by the legislature and therefore, was not formally authorized until a ballot measure passed in 2018.
Additional Contextual Factors
In recent years (beyond the scope of the study period based on the lack of an adequate follow-up period for analysis), Utah began taking a more deliberate approach to addressing racial disparities. The Utah Commission on Criminal and Juvenile Justice released a report in October 2019 exploring the link between race and ethnicity and sentence recommendations. Findings indicated that Hispanic people had an increased likelihood of receiving a more severe sentence recommendation than White people.3 In 2020, the state’s sentencing guidelines were modified to account for racial bias by adding racial bias as a possible mitigating factor in sentencing. And in January 2021, the Utah Judicial Council established an Office of Fairness and Accountability within the Administrative Office of the Courts, placing specific emphasis on reducing racial bias in the court system for the first time. Although stakeholders identified evidence-based mental health and substance use disorder treatment as a key to implementing policy reforms, the disparity between treatment options available in metropolitan areas and services in rural parts of the state made uniform implementation of the changes difficult. Despite efforts to increase access to treatment and services in rural areas, stakeholders noted that significant deficiencies persisted, resulting in inconsistent implementation, questionable sustainability, and diminishing confidence in reform efforts that began in 2015. Stakeholders also noted how lack of resources for mental health and substance use disorder treatment had limited the scalability of front-end diversion options. Stakeholders connected the inconsistent availability of crisis intervention training and trauma-informed care to existing racial disparities. Many indicated that once an arrest was made and an individual entered the justice system, opportunities to reduce racial disparities were constrained.
Statutory Reforms
The Justice Reinvestment Initiative analysis informed legislation that reduced penalties for specified offenses involving controlled substances and made several related changes. The bill, HB 348, reclassified drug possession as a misdemeanor for the first two convictions, modified sentencing guidelines, introduced graduated sanctions for probation and parole violations, established substance use disorder treatment programs for incarcerated individuals, and required training and data collection. Between 2010 and 2020, Utah passed or implemented more than 20 bills focused on changes to criminal sentencing. These bills were reviewed for inclusion in this analysis based on their targeted populations, scope, and content, yielding 22 reforms for further study.4 A review of the 22 candidate bills produced six themes that characterized sentencing reform in Utah during the study period. Based solely on the frequency of the themes, sentencing reforms in Utah were dominated by those that focused on:
- increasing or decreasing sentencing severity (22 laws)
Less prevalent were reforms that focused on:
- repeat offenders (four laws)
- creating new offense categories (three laws)
- expanding or restricting the discretion of criminal justice agency actors (two laws)
- good time or early release (one law)
- treatment programming (one law)
Of the 22 reforms, 21 focused on specific offenses, while one broadly applied to justice-involved groups such as people on probation and parole. Of those that focused on specific offenses, 10 targeted violent crimes, five were focused on human trafficking and prostitution/solicitation, and three related to fraud and property crimes. One bill each focused on escapes, weapons possession, felony theft thresholds, terroristic threats, hit-and-run drivers causing injury, bias-related crimes, and obstruction of justice. None of the bills focused exclusively on drug offenses, but a provision of HB 348 adjusted sentence severity for drug possession convictions. Many of the provisions in the 22 statutes reforms were beyond the scope of the current analysis or had too small of a case base (the number of observable instances that provide complete and relevant data). Because of this, the following analysis only addresses subsets of reforms whose elements could be measured:
- SB 10 (November 2010), a bill that adjusted penalties for aggravated assault.
- HB 348 (May 2015), which adjusted penalties for drug trafficking offenses.
- HB 433 (May 2017), a bill that adjusted penalties for assault against peace officers.
Analysis
Table 1 summarizes the findings of Black-White differences in preexisting trends and patterns, shifts in preexisting levels associated with the implementation of reforms, and post-reform trends. Analyses are detailed in the supplemental methodology report.5 All estimates in Table 1 are differences between the Black and White regression parameters (the degree to which a line slopes upward or downward). A positive post-reform trend difference indicates that the population outcome grew faster for Black people than for White people; if that difference is negative, that means a population outcome either grew more slowly or declined more rapidly for Black people than White people.
Table 1: Summary of Statistical Analysis of Racial Differences in Effects of Utah Reforms
The statutory analysis flows from the finding that changes in admission rates contributed the majority of the change in Black and White imprisonment rates. As such, even though the reforms generally emphasized penalties, the analyses assessed whether there were impacts on admissions as well as sentences imposed. With one exception, the results show little to no racial differences in effects.
SB 10
For SB 10, the analysis found no racial differences in admission rates for aggravated assault offenses but found small effects on the average length of (maximum) sentences imposed. The reform was associated with a three-month reduction in the gap between average sentences for Black and White defendants; Black defendants had an average sentence length of 89 months compared to 92 months among their White counterparts. SB 10 also enhanced penalties for crimes involving street gangs; no evidence of racial differences was detected. It is worth noting that the estimates of the Black-White differences are highly variable due to the small number of people sentenced under SB 10 before and after the reform. On average, there were about 36 White people per year sentenced under SB 10 (or three per month) during the study period; for Black people, there were about 5 per year (less than one-half per month). These small sample sizes not only affect the precision of estimates, but the small differences in effects associated with the reforms are not likely to affect the much larger number of White and Black admissions and sentences. For example, from 2010 through 2019, more than 600 White people and more than 75 Black people (on average) were admitted for violent crimes per year. The number of people affected by SB 10 amount to less than 7% of average White and Black violent crime admissions. And given the absence of racial differences in admissions and sentences (apart from the one-time shift), SB 10 cannot have significantly contributed to racial disparity.
HB 348
The other reform that had a small racial difference was HB 348, which altered penalties for controlled substances. These analyses were limited to drug trafficking offenses under this reform, because, in general, penalties for trafficking increased. The post-reform new court commitment rate for White people increased, but there was no change in the rate for Black people. Pre-reform, an average of about 25 White people and three Black people per month were admitted as new court commitments under HB 348’s resulting statute.6 Post-reform, the level of prison admissions of White people fell immediately (by six admissions per month), but the trend in monthly admissions increased over the five years following the reform, and by early 2020, about 20 White people per month were admitted, which approached the pre-reform levels. The number of Black new court commitments for HB 348 offenses did not change pre- to post-reform. Overall, White admissions totaled about 800 per year, which means that White people admitted to prison under HB 348 accounted for about 38% of all White admissions. However, the racial difference in post-reform trends amounts to an additional six White admissions above the number expected without the HB 348 reform. Consequently, even though White people admitted to prison increased after HB 348, the effect on disparity was practically null.
Discussion
Racial disparity in Utah prisons fell overall and within offense categories by between 54% (overall) and 64% (property crimes). The smallest decrease occurred for public order offenses (18%). Comparable decreases in disparity occurred in prison admission rates, which fell by between 51% (violent crimes) and 66% (property crimes). Disparity in length of stay did not decrease as significantly (in relative terms), but changes in expected length of stay for violent crimes contributed comparatively larger amounts to changes in both Black and White imprisonment rates. Most sentencing reforms in Utah focused on increasing or decreasing sentencing severity, rather than addressing discretion or altering sentencing structure. With two exceptions, where there were sufficient data for analysis, the analysis found no evidence of post-reform differences in outcomes between Black and White people. In the two cases where differences were seen, the effects were small. SB 10 was associated with a three-month relative reduction in sentence length disparity between Black and White people. HB 348 was associated with a short-term decrease in White admissions for drug trafficking offenses, followed by an upward trend in admissions of White people that nearly returned to the pre-reform level; Black admissions were not affected, which implies a relative decrease in Black new court commitments for drug trafficking offenses. The difference in admissions between Black and White people that could be attributed to HB 348 amounted to six people after five years. It is likely that factors outside of Utah’s sentencing system, including front-end changes in arrests and new court commitments per arrest, contributed much more to disparity and drove the 61% reduction in Utah’s Black imprisonment rate and 14% reduction in the White imprisonment rate observed throughout the study period. The factors that contributed to the observed decrease in imprisonment rates for Black and White people resulted in the majority of the incarcerated population being held for violent crimes by 2019.
Utah, like any state, has a distinct political and demographic history that influences the discussion of what does or does not work when addressing disparity in the criminal justice system. This state brief is one of 12 in the Pushing Toward Parity project, all of which seek to identify, what, if any, policy changes are associated with shifts in racial disparity and can serve as examples for states pursuing equity in their criminal justice system.
