City & County Jails in Utah
Utah - Inmate Search - All County Jail Rosters
Clicking on any of the Utah Counties or Cities below will direct you to a list of all the City Jails, County Jails and Juvenile Detention Centers in that specific County.
Search for any jail in Utah
Utah county jails and state prisons
Utah has 29 counties, and the sheriff runs the jail where the county still has one. Salt Lake County Metro Jail is the building most families are looking for. Utah County, Davis, Weber, and Washington are the next tier. A county on the Colorado line or in the west desert may have a small jail or book into a neighbor. City police have a holding room. That is not a county jail.
A year or less stays with the sheriff. A felony sentence goes to the Department of Corrections, which does not always mean a bed at the state prison. The department keeps about 6,000 to 6,500 people in its own facilities and sends eligible inmates to county jails under the Inmate Placement Program. Twenty county jails take those state inmates. The Legislature sets the daily rate. In fiscal 2023 that rate was $61.03, and the jail contracts cost about $37 million. A federal sentence goes to the Bureau of Prisons.
Jails in Utah hold people before trial, people serving a short sentence, and a share of state inmates. The Utah State Correctional Facility, west of the airport in Salt Lake County, replaced the old Draper prison. The women’s prison is on that same campus. A person sentenced in St. George can still be sitting in a county jail under the state contract. When a jail holds somebody for another county, for the state, or for the Marshals, it bills a daily rate.
How many county jails are there in Utah?
Most of the 29 counties operate a jail. A few contract. Salt Lake, Utah, Davis, and Weber account for a large share of the beds. Twenty of the jails also hold state inmates. A full jail in the southeast means a long transfer, not a second jail in the same town.
How many juvenile detention centers are there in Utah?
Juvenile Justice and Youth Services runs the secure detention centers. Salt Lake, Utah, Davis, and Weber are the ones that fill. Smaller counties send a youth to the nearest center. A youth in one of those buildings is usually waiting on a hearing.
A commitment is a different placement, in a long-term JJYS facility, not in the county jail. Search the county of the arrest. The listing shows the detention center that county uses, and a state youth facility only if the youth has been committed.
What the first days in a Utah county jail are like
At the Salt Lake County jail the first day is a booking floor. Name, prints, a medical screen, a search, clothes in a bag, one call if the phones are working. The person has not been convicted. There is no phone in the cell, and no way to know if the job, the truck, or the kids got covered. Glasses stay in property until somebody signs for them. The person in the next bunk may be pretrial, or may already be a state inmate on a county contract.
The hard part is the ordinary part. The uniform does not fit. The bunk is thin, and the next bed is awake. Meals are plain and on a clock. Mail is slow. A visit from St. George or Vernal is a drive that may not happen. Withdrawal from alcohol, opioids, or methamphetamine can start before the first appearance, and the night is when that gets loud. Deputies who apply the rules the same way to everybody run a quieter pod. Uneven rules are how contraband moves. Salt Lake and Utah County can separate by risk. A small eastern jail often cannot, and a full jail there means a transfer.
Tablets, video visits, and deposits take some of the isolation out of the bigger jails. A message home does not fix the bed or the case, and the account can be shut off. Each county page on this site lists the jail phone, the vendor, and the way to send money for that sheriff’s office.