Utah Gov. Spencer Cox announced a new candidate to take the helm of the troubled Department of Corrections on Friday, just three days after the department announced the sudden retirement of outgoing Executive Director Brian Nielson.
The appointment of a former state trooper and chief special agent for the Department of Public Safety, Brian Redd, will go to the Utah Senate for approval. Redd would be the fourth person to head the department in the last five years.
“Brian brings a wealth of experience in management, logistics, security and law enforcement,” Cox said in a statement. “We’re excited he’s willing to re-enter public service and look forward to his vision and leadership of the Utah Department of Corrections.”
If lawmakers sign off on Redd, he will inherit a department that has been audited numerous times for its failure to adequately address prisoners’ health care and for the difficulties it’s had monitoring high-risk offenders after they leave the state’s custody.
Legislative auditors in April released the second report in a year-and-a-half assessing “systemic deficiencies” in medical care at Utah’s correctional facilities.
Of the 13 recommendations auditors reassessed from a prior report, the Department of Corrections told lawmakers last October that two were “in process” and all others had been “implemented.” However, according to auditors, nine of the recommendations reported as “implemented” had not been.
The ongoing problems were attributed to “a culture of noncompliance and lack of accountability” among the department’s medical staff, auditors wrote.
That report comes several months after the rollout of a new medical records system resulted in inmates not getting their prescribed medications.
Nielson’s retirement also comes on the heels of a group of crime victims filing a lawsuit against him, the department and its previous director alleging that violent offenders were wrongfully placed on parole or probation, then improperly monitored, allowing the offenders to commit “avoidable” crimes. Four of the plaintiffs named in the lawsuit were killed by men who had violated their parole, the complaint states.
Overseeing two prisons, probation and parole will be new tasks for Redd, who’s mostly worked on the policing and investigative side of law enforcement.
Redd previously spent 21 years with the Utah Department of Public Safety and served as director of the State Bureau of Investigation, while also sitting on the Utah Crime Victims Council. His most recent position was in the private sector overseeing surveillance teams at Goldman Sachs.
While with the Department of Public Safety, he helped coordinate the Highway Patrol’s involvement in Operation Rio Grande and helped facilitate a cold case database.
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