Utah State Correctional Facility (USCF) is one of two

prison A prison, also known as a jail, gaol, penitentiary, detention center, correction center, correctional facility, or remand center, is a facility where Prisoner, people are Imprisonment, imprisoned under the authority of the State (polity), state ...

s managed by the

Utah Department of Corrections The Utah Department of Corrections (UDC) is a government agency dedicated to the management and supervision of convicted felons in the U.S. state of Utah. It is currently led by the Executive Director Jared Garcia.https://corrections.utah.gov/a ...

' Division of Prison Operations. It is located in the northwestern corner of

Salt Lake City Salt Lake City, often shortened to Salt Lake or SLC, is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Utah. It is the county seat of Salt Lake County, the most populous county in the state. The city is the core of the Salt Lake Ci ...

, Utah, United States. It replaced the former

Utah State Prison Utah State Prison (USP) was one of two prisons managed by the Utah Department of Corrections' Division of Institutional Operations. It was located in Draper, Utah, United States, about southwest of Salt Lake City.Utah Department of Correc ...

in July 2022.

Description

The new , $1 billion facility is located at 1480 North 8000 West on north of

Interstate 80 Interstate 80 (I-80) is an east–west transcontinental freeway that crosses the United States from San Francisco, California, to Teaneck, New Jersey, in the New York metropolitan area. The highway was designated in 1956 as one of the ori ...

, but is barely visible from the freeway. The large prison complex houses both male and female prisoners in separate facilities. These facilities range from minimum security to

supermax A super-maximum security (supermax) or administrative maximum (ADX) prison is a "control-unit" prison, or a unit within prisons, which represents the most secure level of custody in the prison systems of certain countries. The objective is to ...

. Upon opening, 2,464 inmates were transferred from the former Utah State Prison. The Bear Facility houses men's general population, the Antelope Facility houses restricted men's population, the Currant Facility houses men's geriatric and mental health population, and the Dell Facility houses female inmates. The Utah State Correctional Facility is the only prison in Utah authorized to carry out

capital punishment Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty and formerly called judicial homicide, is the state-sanctioned killing of a person as punishment for actual or supposed misconduct. The sentence (law), sentence ordering that an offender b ...

, with executions carried out by

lethal injection Lethal injection is the practice of injecting one or more drugs into a person (typically a barbiturate, paralytic, and potassium) for the express purpose of causing death. The main application for this procedure is capital punishment, but t ...

firing squad Firing may refer to: * Dismissal (employment), sudden loss of employment by termination * Firemaking, the act of starting a fire * Burning; see combustion * Shooting, specifically the discharge of firearms * Execution by firing squad, a method of ...

(for death row inmates sentenced to death before May 2004 or if the state is unable to obtain the necessary lethal injection drugs within 30 days of a scheduled execution).HB0011
/ref> The first inmate to be executed in the facility was Taberon Honie on August 8, 2024; this was also the first execution in Utah since 2010.

History

The former Utah State Prison was built in

Draper Draper was originally a term for a retailer or wholesaler of cloth that was mainly for clothing. A draper may additionally operate as a cloth merchant or a haberdasher. History Drapers were an important trade guild during the medieval period ...

in 1951. Since the former prison's erection,

business park A business park or office park is a designated area of land in which many office buildings are grouped together. These types of developments are often located in suburban areas where land and building costs are more affordable, and are typically ...

s and residential neighborhoods have developed the once

rural In general, a rural area or a countryside is a geographic area that is located outside towns and cities. Typical rural areas have a low population density and small settlements. Agricultural areas and areas with forestry are typically desc ...

area into a

suburban A suburb (more broadly suburban area) is an area within a metropolitan area. They are oftentimes where most of a metropolitan areas jobs are located with some being predominantly residential. They can either be denser or less densely populated ...

one. Seeking the ability to offer better treatment options, the state legislature initiated a process to build a new prison, deciding it was best to relocate elsewhere. A study was completed in 2005 by Wikstrom Economic & Planning Consultants to determine if moving the prison would be feasible. The test of feasibility was whether or not the value of the real estate of the current location could support the cost of relocation. It was determined that the cost of relocating the prison far exceeded the value that could be realized from the sale of the Draper prison site. However, on August 19, 2015, a special session of the state legislature voted to move the prison to the northwest side of Salt Lake City. The new facility was completed and the inmates from the former prison were transferred July 11–15, 2022. The former prison officially closed on July 15, 2022. In March 2025 140 inmates at the prison were treated for

scabies Scabies (; also sometimes known as the seven-year itch) is a contagious human skin infestation by the tiny (0.2–0.45 mm) mite ''Sarcoptes scabiei'', variety ''hominis''. The word is from . The most common symptoms are severe itchiness a ...

Notable inmates

Jodi Hildebrandt Jodi Nan Hildebrandt is an American counselor and YouTuber who was convicted of aggravated child abuse. On August 30, 2023, Hildebrandt and Ruby Franke were arrested in Washington County, Utah, and charged with six counts of aggravated child a ...

– serving four consecutive terms, which in practice means between 4 and 30 years total, at the parole board's discretion. *

Ruby Franke Ruby Franke (; born January 18, 1982) is an American former family vlogger and convicted child abuser who ran the now defunct YouTube channel 8 Passengers. On August 30, 2023, Franke and Jodi Hildebrandt were arrested in Washington County, ...

– serving four consecutive terms, which in practice means between 4 and 30 years total, at the parole board's discretion. * Megan Huntsman – serial perpetrator of neonatal infanticide serving 15 to life. * Dan Charles Lafferty - serving life term * Ralph Leroy Menzies - serving a death sentence

Executed

* Taberon Honie – executed on August 8, 2024.

References

External links

Official site
at the