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Show City, County Officers Get Jail Management Training Course Garfield County Law enforcement officers Don Mosier, sheriff of Garfield County, and Don Kidder, chief of police, Panguitch City, recently attended a three day jail management seminar in Salt Lake City. The seminar was made possible by a grant awarded, to the Utah Peace Officers in 1977 by the Utah Council on Criminal Justice and dealt with the changes in management responsibilities in jails. Changes include new tests, new legal presumptions, and new burdens of proof that the jail operator must be aware of in his day to day operation of jail facilities. Many such changes have come about from a U.S. Supreme Court decision, Bell versus Wolfish, on May 14, 1979, which made many well known and long practiced poilicies and procedures in jails obsolete. Jail administrators, seminar directors explained, are facing personal responsibility for the day to day operation of their jails. For example, a sheriff in Virginia was held personally liable for $50,000 for failing to request personnel to provide 24-hour a day supervision of inmates in his jail. Officers attending the seminar were introduced to legal issues of jail management and their civil liability under the .supreme court decision of Bell versus Wolfish. Legal duties of jail administrators and constitutional rights of prisoners under the same division were also studied. The specific application of the decision to Utah jails was also discussed and at the conclusion of the meeting, officers addressed the newest standards for Utah jails. |