State Prisons in Utah

Utah Department of Corrections - Prisons and Inmate Search

Utah State Prisons and Juvenile Facilities

Prison history in Utah begins in territorial days at the Sugar House Prison in Salt Lake City, which opened in the 1850s and held the territory’s first executions. Today the state’s prisons, probation and parole are run by the Utah Department of Corrections (UDC), headquartered in Draper.

Utah runs a compact system with just two state prisons, and it leans heavily on county jails. In mid-August 2025 the department reported about 6,600 people in its custody: roughly 3,160 at the Utah State Correctional Facility, 1,765 at the Central Utah Correctional Facility and about 1,575 held in county jails under contract, against about 7,200 total beds. The jail arrangement, called the Inmate Placement Program, began in 1987 when the old state prison ran out of room, and it now holds about a quarter of all state prisoners. With the system nearly full, lawmakers in 2026 weighed $130 million to add 768 beds in Salt Lake City.

Utah state prisons

• Utah State Correctional Facility, Salt Lake City: the state’s main prison, west of the airport, holding men at every security level, the main medical and mental health units, the execution chamber and, in its Dell Facility, the state’s women
• Central Utah Correctional Facility, Gunnison: opened in 1989, it houses up to 1,800 men in central Utah
• County jails under contract: jails around the state hold about 1,500 state prisoners
• Community correctional centers: six residential centers in Salt Lake, Weber and Utah counties for people on probation or newly paroled

The move from Draper

For 71 years, Utah’s main prison was the Utah State Prison at Draper, built in 1951 at the south end of the Salt Lake Valley. Between July 11 and 15, 2022, the state moved about 2,460 prisoners to the new Utah State Correctional Facility in northwest Salt Lake City, built for about $1 billion, and the Draper prison closed. The old site is being redeveloped into a new neighborhood called The Point.

Where do new prisoners go first?

Men and women sentenced to prison in Utah are typically brought from the county jail to the Utah State Correctional Facility for intake. Staff complete health screening and set a classification level. People are then assigned to housing at that prison, at Gunnison or in a contract county jail. Check the offender search before mailing anything, since moves can come quickly.

How to find an inmate in Utah

Use UDC’s Offender Search to look someone up by name or offender number. It covers people currently under UDC supervision, including state prisoners placed in county jails, but not people held in jail while awaiting trial or sentencing. Keep the offender number for mail, deposits and visiting applications.

Death penalty and the firing squad

Utah has the death penalty and is closely tied to the history of the firing squad. On January 17, 1977, Gary Gilmore was shot by a firing squad at the Draper prison, the first U.S. execution after capital punishment resumed. Utah has carried out eight executions since 1976 and 43 before that. Ronnie Lee Gardner was the last to die by firing squad, on June 18, 2010. The most recent execution was Taberon Honie, by lethal injection on August 8, 2024, Utah’s first execution in 14 years.

Lethal injection is the standard method. The firing squad is reserved for people sentenced before May 2004 who chose it, or for cases where lethal injection drugs are unavailable, an option lawmakers restored in 2015. Utah’s death row is small, with five people listed by the Death Penalty Information Center, and it has shrunk further in the past year. Ralph Menzies, who had chosen the firing squad, was found incompetent to be executed because of dementia and died of natural causes on November 26, 2025. Douglas Carter, sentenced to death for the 1985 killing of Eva Olesen, won a new trial after the Utah Supreme Court cited intentional misconduct by police and a prosecutor. Prosecutors dropped the death penalty, and after DNA tests failed to match him he was released on bail on September 28, 2026.

Utah juvenile facilities

Young people are served by the Division of Juvenile Justice and Youth Services (JJYS), part of the Utah Department of Health and Human Services. It began in 1981 as the Division of Youth Corrections. Unlike most states, Utah runs juvenile detention at the state level, so a youth held while their case is in juvenile court is in a JJYS facility, not a county one. JJYS lists five secure care facilities for youth committed by the court after the most serious offenses:

• Decker Lake Youth Center, West Valley City
• Farmington Bay Youth Center, Farmington
• Mill Creek Youth Center, Ogden
• Slate Canyon Youth Center, Provo
• Southwest Utah Youth Center, Cedar City

Juvenile records are confidential, so parents and guardians should contact JJYS or the youth’s case manager directly.

To search for an inmate or juvenile, or to learn how to visit, call, write or send money to someone in the Utah Department of Corrections or Division of Juvenile Justice and Youth Services, choose a facility from the list below.

Each prison you click on below will provide specific, detailed information about the facility's: 

• inmate search,
• location,
• contact information,
• directions,
• inmate visitation,
• mail,
• phone accounts,
• money accounts,
• commissary,
• texting and emailing where available, and
• inmate tablet rental where available.