Utah Correctional Standards (FY27 Secure Facilities) — Pest, Vermin, and Food Service Inspection

Citation

Utah Department of Corrections (UDC), Utah Correctional Standards, Secure Facilities, FY27 edition, pages marked “Revised: January 2026.” Published as a PDF linked from UDC’s Correctional Facility Standards page (https://corrections.utah.gov/about-us/correctional-facility-standards/). Read on September 24, 2026.

What It Says (Verbatim)

Introduction:

“These Standards are intended as minimum standards for the operation of any security facility housing offenders under the jurisdiction of the Utah Department of Corrections.”

“Regularly scheduled inspections of facilities will be conducted monthly.”

“Open records requests received by UDC for records uploaded in the Utah Correctional Standards monitoring software/system will be denied according to the Utah Government Records Access and Management Act, 63 G-2-101, et seq. (GRAMA), and the requester will be informed that the records need to be requested from the respective facility.”

E-03 Facility Inspections & Maintenance:

“The facility shall have a policy requiring documented facility inspections to be conducted at a minimum of weekly. The policy must contain a process for reporting and tracking maintenance issues, along with identifying significant areas of interest, such as: A. Facility cleanliness: facilities shall be clean and in good repair. Floors throughout the facility shall be kept clean, dry, and free of any hazardous materials or substance. B. Pest/Vermin control: facility shall remove inmates from areas if there is a risk of illness.”

G-04 Weekly Food Service Inspections:

“When meals are prepared in the facility, the facility shall have a written policy, procedure and practice requiring weekly health, safety, and sanitation inspections by the correctional facility administrator or designee and food service manager. Records of the inspections and any corrective actions must be maintained at the facility.”

G-05 Food Service Health Inspection:

“Food service facilities and employees shall, and equipment must, comply with all applicable health, safety, and sanitation laws and regulations.”

“The health inspector authority having jurisdiction shall conduct an inspection of the food service area of the facility at least once a year. The facility shall maintain records of all inspections and all actions taken as a result of these inspections.”

I-01 Laundry Services, item F:

“F. Control of Vermin in Inmates’ personal clothing: There shall be written policies and procedures developed by the facility administrator to control the contamination and/or spread of vermin in all inmates’ personal clothing. Infested clothing shall be cleaned, disinfected, or stored in a closed container so as to eradicate or stop the spread of the vermin.”

UDC’s standards page says the standards “are available and transparent to the public, consistent with the open records law as outlined in Utah GRAMA code, Title 63G- 2.” It describes the two volumes: “two separate volumes of standards to specifically address the needs of Secure Correctional Facilities (Prison & County Jail) and Community Correctional Facilities (CCC).”

What It Means in Plain Language

The Utah standards do not prescribe a pest control program, a service frequency, or a licensed provider. They do four things:

1. Put pests on the weekly inspection. E-03 requires documented facility inspections at least weekly, and lists pest/vermin control as an area of interest. The one action it states is protective: remove inmates from an area if there is a risk of illness.
2. Put the kitchen on a weekly inspection. Where meals are prepared on site, G-04 requires weekly health, safety, and sanitation inspections by the administrator or designee and the food service manager, with records and corrective actions kept at the facility.
3. Send the kitchen to the health inspector. G-05 requires compliance with all applicable health and sanitation law and an inspection of the food service area by the health authority having jurisdiction at least once a year. Utah’s food service sanitation rule is R392-100, which adopts the 2022 FDA Food Code, including its pest control paragraph, Section 6-501.111.
4. Require a written vermin policy for clothing. I-01(F) requires written policies and procedures to control vermin in inmates’ personal clothing, and states how infested clothing is handled: cleaned, disinfected, or stored in a closed container.

A weekly inspection that notes pest activity creates a record. What the facility did next, and who did it, is the part of the file these standards leave to other authorities.

Records requests. UDC states it will deny GRAMA requests for records uploaded to its standards monitoring system and will direct requesters to the facility. G-04 and G-05 require the facility itself to keep its food service inspection records. Utah Code 63G-2-301(3)(u) lists correctional facility standards and inspection results as normally public; see the related GRAMA page.

Who It Applies To

By its own terms: any security facility housing offenders under UDC’s jurisdiction. UDC’s standards page describes the Secure Facilities volume as covering prisons and county jails. Standards that apply to a Utah county jail holding no state inmates are not established by this document; see the open questions on the methodology page.

Documentation Evidence

• The facility’s written inspection policy under E-03, and the weekly inspection records, including pest/vermin findings
• Records of any relocation of inmates from an area because of pest-related illness risk (E-03(B))
• Weekly food service inspection records and corrective actions (G-04)
• The written policy and procedures for vermin in inmates’ personal clothing (I-01(F))
• The annual health inspection report for the food service area, and actions taken on it (G-05)

Confidence Notes

HIGH confidence. Every quotation was read from the FY27 Secure Facilities PDF and UDC’s standards page on September 24, 2026, and checked against a full text extraction. The PDF’s text layer renders some “ff” letter pairs as ligatures; the quotations give the words as printed.