The KSL Investigators examine Utah's corrections system, which is responsible for treating and releasing people who commit sex crimes.
RICHFIELD — Surveillance camera footage from a Utah high school captured the moment a convicted sex offender, barred from setting foot on school grounds, pulled up next to a teenage girl and asked to buy her underwear in December 2021.In January, a woman reported to the Taylorsville Police Department that a recently paroled sex offender brutally raped her in her home, threatened her life and the life of her son, and assaulted her cats.
Just 13 months earlier, Utah's Board of Pardons and Parole chose to release Peck. He served a little more than 11 years of a one-to-20-year sentence for sexually abusing another minor in 2009. Jessica Black's plea to board members happened during a special hearing in 2020. She said she was not notified of his parole hearing as required by Utah's constitution, and it was held without her. Despite the board scheduling another hearing to allow her to come and speak, she believes the decision was already made.
"Until I get the help to change the way I'm thinking, I should not be released from prison," he said. "I have a serious problem, and I need help with it. I can't control it by myself, I need some kind of tools to help me with it."A decade later, in 2020, Peck completed sex offense treatment in prison and was granted release, despite warnings to the board from Jessica Black and her family.
Less than 45 days after his release on parole, Susan said Browning came to her home to meet her for the first time in person. While there, he learned there was a warrant out for his arrest for a parole violation."The first thing he said is, 'Well, since I'm going back to prison, I'm going to make it worth my while,'" Susan told the KSL Investigators.
Browning also brought up her efforts to help people who are incarcerated, Susan said. "He kept telling me over and over again, 'I'm a monster,' and, 'What do you think of criminal justice work now?'""I'm a mom. I'm a grandmother," she said. "I think it's a good thing to remember that it isn't about sex, it's about control, or, you know, imposing one's will on another. And there's no age group for that.
Believing he had been rehabilitated, Susan said she wrote the parole board on Browning's behalf, advocating for his release.While Susan and Jessica Black's stories have stark differences, they both involve sex offenders, each with prior victims, who were treated in prison and then released."No one, to me, is irredeemable," she said. "The treatment really needs to be reevaluated.
Browning served 20 years before he had the opportunity to start treatment, but Parrish said that timing was intentional and strategic. "There's tons of research to show that they're, they are treatable," she said. "They are amenable to treatment, look at the recidivism rates." "Our ultimate goal here is no new victims, no new crimes," Parrish said. "But there's no perfect recipe to guarantee that every single individual that provided, is provided treatment by us is not going to commit a new crime. We just have to do our best."Utah's powerful Board of Pardons and Parole has the ultimate say on who gets out of prison and when.
Browning served 24 years of a five-to-life sentence, "which was approximately 18 years over Mr. Browning's sentencing guideline date of Aug. 3, 2004," a statement from the board noted. Last year, Utah's Department of Corrections told KSL that even after completing sex offense treatment, Peck's risk assessment still showed he had a higher-than-average risk for re-offending, and that information is provided to the parole board before making decisions about release.
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