Most of the inmates crammed into the Denver County Jail are accused of robbery, burglary, selling drugs and even violent assaults.
Relatively few of them are the drunken drivers and petty drug users whom people often associate with county jail.
An analysis by The Denver Post of jail records on a recent typical day shows 60 percent of the inmates were awaiting trial on felony charges. Of those, at least a quarter were accused of violent felonies.
The majority of pretrial inmates face nonviolent felony charges, with 40 percent of them accused of drug-only crimes. However, the vast majority of those inmates have prior arrests as well. And not just for drugs.
Only 9.7 percent of the inmates were awaiting trial on misdemeanor offenses.
Denver voters will decide May 3 whether the city should build a $378 million jail and justice center.
Opponents of the initiative have argued that the jail population could be reduced through diversionary programs and more drug and mental-health treatment.
But The Post analysis reveals that most of the inmates awaiting trial are habitual offenders, and many are accused of serious crimes. A review of violent felons in the jail, based on an examination of the inmate’s most serious alleged offense, shows: 37 people being held on murder charges; 26 for sexual assault of a child; 44 for robbery; 85 for assault; 15 for sexual assault; and 13 for kidnapping.
“The people in the jail really deserve to be there,” said Presiding Denver County Judge Andrew S. Armatas. People charged with petty offenses – even repeat offenders – and minor drug charges are usually ordered to wear ankle bracelets or given probation. Jail, he said, is reserved for those facing serious charges.
A snapshot of the jail on April 11, a typical day, shows that 2,022 inmates were packed into a space designed for 1,514.
About 87 percent of the inmates in the Denver jail were men. Roughly 36 percent of both male and female inmates were Hispanic, a third were black, and 28 percent were white.
There were about 528 men charged with nonviolent felonies and 293 facing violent-felony charges, according to The Post analysis. Roughly 84 women faced nonviolent felony charges and 26 were charged with violent felonies.
Each has a story.
Cases in point
Ivan Martinez, already a convicted felon, was allegedly caught selling a bag of crack cocaine to an undercover police officer on a March afternoon.
Police said Robert Lee Halley, facing a misdemeanor charge, had an argument with his girlfriend last month and broke out the kitchen and bedroom windows before slapping her.
Joseph Gilbert Leal, Alfred Louis Leon and Hyron Tucker were all facing charges for sexual assault of children, according to sheriff’s records.
Noe Loya, Curtis Adams and Raymond Lamont Allen are each charged with first-degree murder.
George Bennett is one of the jail’s “revolving door” inmates. Over the past five years, he has had nearly 90 cases in Denver County Court for a litany of charges, including public consumption of alcohol, public indecency, trespassing, panhandling, loitering and disturbing the peace.
Even if voters approve the bond initiative for a new jail, the jail will remain crowded for a few more years while the new facility is being built.
Diversionary programs and sentencing alternatives are in the works, according to the administration of Mayor John Hickenlooper, which plans to fund $1.3 million in such programs for fiscal 2007 and more in the years after.
The Sheriff’s Department estimates there may be up to 200 people in the jail at any given time who might be eligible for some type of alternative treatment.
Lindsay Shannon Ryan, 24, could be one of them. She was one of the 86 percent of female inmates in jail on a single felony drug charge. She could not make bail.
She was arrested on suspicion of possession of methamphetamine when police made a routine check of rooms at a Motel 6. Held on $25,000 bond, she has a prior felony conviction for drug possession.
“These are the populations we need to look at to see if they really need to be there,” said City Councilman Doug Linkhart, who supports the jail initiative but is part of a city sentencing alternative task force. “Those people are often the best candidates for pretrial services.”
Community corrections officials could be monitoring 200 more lower-risk inmates than they are, Linkhart noted. And Denver is moving forward with a misdemeanor drug court, which could divert roughly 90 people from jail into other programs, he said.
Christie Donner, executive director of the Colorado Criminal Justice Reform Coalition, said the money promised by the administration is not nearly enough. There also need to be more intensive strategies, she said, such as residential treatment and mental health treatment.
But the majority of those incarcerated for a single drug felony, or multiple drug felonies, have histories of other arrests and other charges, making their release more risky.
Alternative programs might not be feasible for more than 200 people in the jail on April 11 who faced no substantive charge at all but were there because they failed to show up for court as ordered or had violated terms of their parole, probation or sentencing alternatives, putting themselves back where they started.
Sleeping in jail’s gym
With conditions at the 50- year-old jail deteriorating daily, and inmates being forced to sleep packed together in the jail’s gym, Denver – like Los Angeles, Detroit and Tampa – may also face a real chance of a federal court order capping the jail’s population at the 1,514 prisoners it was designed to hold if a prisoner files a lawsuit.
“There is certainly a possibility of that happening,” said Joe Sandoval, a criminal justice professor at Metropolitan State College of Denver. “The jail has the potential to explode. The sheriffs have done a great job at keeping a lid on it so far, but …”
One of the primary reasons Denver hasn’t faced a serious crowding suit so far is because an inmate loses standing in court after being released from jail. Those sentenced for misdemeanors serve only up to two years, and the Sheriff’s Department has said that the average stay is a little over a month.
Already, the department reduces the jail’s population by regularly releasing people convicted of misdemeanor crimes who are nearing the end of their sentences, Director of Corrections Fred Oliva said.
And Denver District Attorney Mitch Morrissey said he believes some judges are giving lighter “sentences they otherwise would not give if they didn’t know the jail is full.”
So, faced with a court order, which 300 to 500 inmates would go?
“We would have to release not just misdemeanants but felons,” said Oliva, noting that he would have to work with judges on that issue. “We would check all the surrounding areas to see if they can house them, which we would have to pay for. Or we turn them loose. ”
Oliva and other law enforcement officials said violent felons would be expected to remain jailed. Other counties that have had to release inmates from their jails due to crowding have done so by freeing misdemeanants and nonviolent offenders first. But that doesn’t necessarily mean those inmates released aren’t dangerous.
“It’s always a safety issue,” Morrissey said. “You always run a risk that one of these people will go out and hurt somebody.”
The Marion County jail in Indianapolis freed 9,100 inmates between 2001 and 2004 because of crowding, according to news reports. At least five people released were later charged with murder.
Detroit’s Wayne County Jail has released 8,000 people early in the past three years. About 1,085 were re-arrested: 23 for murder, 46 for armed robbery, 40 for violent assaults, and 11 for rape, according to The Detroit News.
In the mid-1990s, a Los Angeles Times study found that one in four Los Angeles County inmates committed new offenses within months of early release.
In Denver, Oliva said there is little he can do but continue exactly what he’s been doing.
“The environment is dangerous. Something could happen at any time,” he said. “But I have a great staff, and so far, we’ve been lucky.”
Staff writer Karen Crummy can be reached at 303-820-1594 or kcrummy@denverpost.com.
