SALT LAKE CITY — If Franklin Carroll wants to walk out of prison before his sentences expire in 2029, he needs to take sex-offender treatment courses.

“I’m just burning up time here,” Carroll said in a phone call to FOX 13. “There’s not a lot of options for me – just to stare at walls.”

Carroll has been writing for months – to FOX 13, friends, family, prison officials, Gov. Spencer Cox. All the correspondence complains that he is unable to take the treatment that the Utah Board of Pardons and Parole has told him he needs to complete for an early release.

“Just the lack of resources,” Carroll said, explaining the excuses he’s heard. “Not enough counselors.”

He’s one of dozens of Utah prison inmates who aren’t receiving treatment. And they’re having to stay behind bars longer because of it.

“I hear it directly from inmates,” said Brian Redd, who last year became the director of the Utah Department of Corrections. “‘My parole date was moved because you couldn’t get me the treatment that I needed.’”

According to the Utah Board of Pardons and Parole – BOP in the lingo of the Utah justice system –about 67 inmates had their parole dates rescinded last year because, through no fault of their own, they were unable to complete their required treatment. At $140 a day to house an inmate, those missed parole dates add up on ledgers.

The problem isn’t limited to sex offenders, and is wider than inmates already scheduled for parole. Often prisoners can’t get into therapies that could reduce violence and drug use within the prisons, Redd acknowledges. At the penitentiaries in Salt Lake City and Gunnison, what programming is available is prioritized for inmates trying meet their parole dates.

Philip Hatfield, serving sentences for attempted murder and assault, said he waited seven years before being admitted into a cognitive behavior course.

“And I’d like to get into substance abuse treatment,” Hatfield said in an interview at the Salt Lake City prison, “but I’ve been told no on that, too, because I have to have a year to getting out (on parole).”

It wasn’t supposed to be this way.

When Utah legislators were pitching the closing of the Draper prison and the building of the new one in Salt Lake City, they often said a new prison would offer new programming opportunities for inmates.

A video produced in 2015 by the Prison Relocation Commission even touted inmate therapies as a way to reduce recidivism and lower costs across the state’s justice system.

During the 2022 dedication for the Salt Lake City prison, whose construction costs grew to $1 billion, Cox listed therapy as one of its assets.

“So that there can be more programming here,” the governor said. “So that we can give these incarcerated individuals the tools to fix their lives.”

Redd said a lack of staff is the reason for the programming struggles. The two prisons need more teachers and therapists. They also need more corrections officers – the preferred term for guards – to escort inmates to classrooms and keep a watch there.

The lack of programming is “something that we definitely are working on,” Redd said. “And it’s not OK.”

Redd, who worked his way through the state trooper ranks, was not one of those public officials making promises during the prison debate a decade ago. But he says he is cognizant of those commitments made to taxpayers. Corrections is trying to address the deficiencies through hiring more staff, he said.

Redd also wants to ensure inmates are receiving programming as soon as they enter prison; not just in a rush at the end to meet a deadline for parole.

“We want to make sure that we’re bringing them in,” Redd said, “and giving them opportunities right out of the gate.”

Jennifer Yim, the spokeswoman for BOP, said it has begun meeting with inmates soon after their arrivals at the prisons, making determinations about what programming those inmates need, and relaying those needs to Corrections so it can plan.

Completing treatment is no guarantee of parole, though it increases the likelihood. Also, without treatment, Utah runs the risk of letting inmates like Carroll, who have finite prison terms, sit in prison longer and then return to society with no new coping mechanisms.

The sex offender courses teach things like empathy and decision making. Instead of learning that, Carroll said, he spends a lot of his day watching television.

“I will be a hundred percent honest,” Carroll said. “At first, I wanted [treatment] for me. I wanted to learn things from it.

“But now I just feel like my back’s against the wall and I’m forced to do it.”

WASATCH COUNTY, Utah (ABC4) — Three people were injured in a crash on US-40 on Sunday afternoon, with one person being flown to the hospital, according to the Utah Highway Patrol.

Officials with UHP told ABC4.com that a semi truck with an empty tanker was traveling eastbound on US-40 when it got hit by an RV that was turning to go westbound on the same road.

UHP officials said the RV was towing a boat at the time of the crash.

The incident happened near Strawberry Reservoir in Wasatch County, and officials said both the driver of the semi truck and the driver of the RV suffered minor injuries, but neither was taken to the hospital.

The passenger in the RV was flown to the hospital in critical condition, according to UHP.

According to the Utah Department of Transportation, the crash occurred near milepost 40, about 19 miles south of Heber City.

UDOT said the crash happened just before 12:30 p.m. on Sunday, and drivers were advised to seek alternate routes while the roads were closed. UDOT said motorists should expect major delays in the area.

The incident was expected to be cleared by 4:30 p.m., according to UDOT. However, UHP told ABC4.com that traffic in the area was alternating and that the road was not closed.

There is no further information at this time.

There are multiple sides to most stories and Jerry Bovee wants his side told after Utah State dismissed him as the school’s deputy athletic director.

Here is that telling.

First, the setup: USU president Elizabeth Cantwell and athletic director Diana Sabau this past week gave Bovee notice that he and Utah State football coach Blake Anderson were being fired. The reason, according to a statement from the school’s top administrators, was that there had been an unacceptable rupture in a required reporting process for sexual misconduct, including domestic violence, inside Anderson’s football program.

In Bovee’s case, USU said in a news release, there had been “violations of university policies related to the reporting of sexual and domestic violence” and “failures of professional responsibilities.”

Au contraire, said Bovee.

I wrote a column criticizing Anderson for his shortcomings in this regard, past and present, and congratulated Cantwell and Sabau for knocking down walls that often are put up by coaches and administrators to protect their programs and themselves.

Bovee subsequently told me he did report information he received from Anderson within 24 hours of hearing about it, as is required according to school policy, to an appropriate USU official.

“I reported it through the vice president of student affairs to the Equity Office,” he said. “That’s ingrained in our heads … we take that seriously.”

Two other individuals at the school reported alongside Bovee, he said. “All three of our names are on the report.”

Bovee said he couldn’t speak to Anderson’s actions in this case or others.

For the university’s part, it said it would have no additional comment until further notice.

The incident at hand centered on a football player at Utah State who Bovee said was involved in an “incident” with a woman in April, 2023. Said athlete shortly thereafter transferred to another school. Because Bovee is filing a grievance against Utah State for his termination, he did not share specifics of what precisely took place, other than to say there were no charges filed in the case.

The deputy AD, who at the time of that incident and report was the school’s interim athletic director, said he is confused by the decision reached by Cantwell and Sabau to fire him on these grounds. Asked why Cantwell and Sabau would fire him if he had followed proper channels in the case, he said he could only guess. And he preferred not to. Again, Bovee wouldn’t speak to or for Anderson or the coach’s situation, but he reiterated that he reported what he knew when he knew it, promptly and properly.

“My reputation and my name, I’m going to fight for that,” he said. “… It’s hurtful that my name is associated with this. I’ve been doing [sports leadership] for 32 years, this is at the top of my list, the importance of getting [such issues] right regarding women.”

Bovee said he’s gone to great lengths to educate personnel and players at Utah State regarding issues of sexual misconduct, how to report it, how to eradicate it, how to — due to past history — make Utah State a “safe school.”

He added that it’s not his intention to do harm to USU, the school that is his alma mater: “I have a great love for Utah State. I have confidence in the grievance process,” and that the school upon further review “will get this right.”

Bovee and his attorney issued this statement to The Salt Lake Tribune:

“Jerry Bovee, recently terminated by Utah State University, is vigorously defending his reputation as a loyal Aggies alum and stellar Associate Vice President and Deputy Athletics Director. With decades of athletic leadership under his belt, Bovee is a firm supporter and defender of Title IX civil rights law. In his tenured career, he has never incurred disciplinary action or accusations of misconduct of any kind.

“Bovee, who was blind-sighted by this decision, understands he was terminated based on an inconclusive and untimely review of an incident that took place more than a year ago in April of 2023, while he was Interim Athletic Director. Contrary to what has been represented, Bovee and two other USU employees did in fact report the incident to the USU Office of Equity. Even so, the external review did not commence until the fall of 2023. And not until July 2, 2024, some eight months later, was Bovee summarily terminated, without an opportunity to respond to the results of the review.

“He fully intends to file a grievance pursuant to USU policy within 30 days of termination. Bovee has no ill will against USU, an institution that he loves. He trusts the University will consider in good faith all the circumstances specific to actions taken by Bovee in considering his grievance and will also refrain from further comment while his grievance is pending.”

Bovee’s side of the story includes this comment, though: “This is the most painful week I’ve had in my career. I’m hopeful I’ll get fair treatment. To say there’s been a lot of tears shed in the Bovee home this week is understating it.”