Utah Prison English-Only Visitor Rule Dropped Following Inmate, Family Complaints

Utah's state prison is dropping a rule prohibiting its inmates from speaking languages other than English during visits, making it the last state in the US to do away with such prohibitions, according to a study conducted last year by Yale Law School students. Signs placed public entrances and in visiting rooms in the prison had previously warned that all conversations with inmates had to be in English. Those signs are being taken down and put away after the change was ordered by Rollin Cook, Utah's new prison boss. It will take effect on August 1.

One of the three authors of the Yale Law study, Chesa Boudin, who is now a deputy public defender in San Francisco, said he was "shocked" upon learning of the rule. "This is a country that prides itself on its diversity: racially, ethnically, linguistically. Utah, while not the epicenter of immigration in this country, has many language groups."

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Utah Department of Corrections spokesman Steve Gehrke told the Associated Press that the visitation rule had existed as a safety measure to ensure that all officers could understand what inmates and visitors were saying to each other and thus monitor visits effectively.

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John Mejia, the legal director for the ACLU of Utah, told the Salt Lake Tribune that his organization had received a host of complaints about the English-only policy from inmates and family members, especially from mothers who wanted to use their native language in communicating with their sons and daughters. "That was very concerning to us," Mejia said. "We didn't see any strong penological need to have such a rule and we were also concerned that it might put the prison out of compliance with federal rules regarding accommodations for people who speak a foreign language. The prison walls don't cut you off from our Constitution."

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According to the Salt Lake Tribune, the change came in conjunction with a numbers others. One will allow individuals on the outside to belong to more than one inmate's approved visitation list. Another allows opposite-sex visitors who are part of a prisoner's extended family to see the prisoner without being accompanied by their spouse, the inmate's spouse or the inmate's parents. The prison will also let unmarried inmates receive more than one unmarried visitor of the opposite sex at one time - a rule designed to prevent disputes from breaking out when an inmate had an ongoing relationship with more than one significant other.