The standards followed by jailers across Utah and in 18 other states help counties provide a legally sound level of inmate care when running their jails, the standards’ author said Thursday.
But most of the standards must remain secret for what the author Gary DeLand called “selfish” reasons.
DeLand said Thursday he’d rather end his arrangement that gives sheriffs and their employees access to his jail-operating guidelines than to let them end up in the hands of inmate’s attorneys who could use them against his clients in court.
“Coca Cola doesn’t tell Pepsi Cola what goes in the damn drink,” DeLand, who ran the Utah Department of Corrections from 1985-1992, said during a news conference.