Campaigners for and against Denver’s proposed $378 million downtown justice center are walking neighborhoods and bending ears this final weekend.
Voters will decide the issue Tuesday after a campaign that pitted Mayor John Hickenlooper and most of the city’s leaders against those who have argued that less expensive solutions should be explored first.
The proposed center includes 1,500 jail beds and 35 courtrooms. Also, the city’s primary jail, on Smith Road, would be renovated.
The sides have debated several key points for months. Here is a recap:
The need for a new jail
PRO
The city regularly houses more than 2,000 inmates in a jail system designed for 1,672. Most inmates live two or three to a cell.
The conditions are ripe for a lawsuit and perhaps federal intervention, city officials say.
“The indisputable need for new jail and court facilities dates back to the early 1990s,” Hickenlooper said. “Every year we wait to build a justice center, the construction escalation costs increase by $8 million.”
CON
Denver needs more jail space, but not as many as 1,420 net new beds, including potential renovations at Smith Road, opponents say. That amounts to an 85 percent increase in capacity.
The city should first implement diversionary programs and more alternatives to incarceration to rehabilitate repeat offenders, they say.
“You do the research, you identify areas where you can implement alternatives, you implement them, and then you look at what your future (jail) bed needs will be,” said Christie Donner, a leader of the opposition campaign.
Expected growth in inmate numbers
PRO
At a modest growth rate of 1.3 percent, the number of inmates in Denver’s jail would fill the justice center’s extra 1,420 beds by about 2034, according to city calculations. At a growth rate of 4 percent – the national average – those extra beds would be filled by roughly 2013.
Denver’s technology for analyzing data about its inmate population – such as inmates’ charges, sentence durations and previous incarcerations – is 20 years old. The city has allotted $1.6 million in this year’s budget for the Denver Sheriff’s Department to buy an updated jail-management database system.
“I think we’ve done as good a job as humanly possible to predict what we need to do with the new justice center,” Denver Undersheriff Fred Oliva said.
CON
Without the ability to routinely track and analyze trends within its jail population, Denver cannot easily identify ways to ease jail crowding.
Instead, the city has estimated its future need for jail space by projecting a steady growth rate of its jail population. That method does not fully take into account the impact of diversionary programs, alternatives to incarceration, changes in sentencing practices and innovations in housing inmates.
“We’ve never done a comprehensive jail-bed analysis to see who’s in jail and why they’re in jail,” Donner said.
Alternatives to incarceration
PRO
Denver already uses some alternative programs, including a robust electronic-monitoring effort that tracks more than 2,000 offenders a year.
Among the city’s new offerings are a federally funded program aimed at rehabilitating prostitutes and a special court designed to help homeless offenders clear their records.
Denver is now seating a 32-member Crime Prevention and Control Commission that will study diversionary programs and alternatives to incarceration and make suggestions to city leaders. Hickenlooper has pledged $1.3 million in funding for such programs next year.
CON
Donner calls the city’s funding allotments for diversionary programs and incarceration alternatives “inadequate.”
Donner adds that the city should calculate how many additional jail beds it needs only after introducing diversionary programs and tracking results.
“We still haven’t heard what’s going to get cut (from the city budget) to pay for the alternatives,” Donner said.
“They want voters to approve a massive expansion for the jail, then they’re going to fund alternatives. It’s completely backward.”
The effect on taxpayers
PRO
The proposal will not increase taxpayers’ net burden, city officials say.
Rather, with voter approval, the city will issue $378 million in bonds for the justice center as other debts are paid off in the coming years. As a result, the justice center will not directly cause the city’s net property- tax bill to exceed $70 million annually.
CON
Opponents argue that the proposal amounts to a tax increase because, without it, Denver property taxes would fall by more than $90 a year per $250,000 home. That assumes, though, that the city would not issue bonds to fund other projects in the meantime.
Opponents add that incurring $378 million in debt for the justice center will leave no bonding capacity – at least for a few years – for other cash-needy operations, such as the Denver Public Library and Denver Botanic Gardens.
Space for new courtrooms
PRO
City officials say the current layout of courtrooms in the City and County Building results in shackled prisoners being led through halls filled with jurors, lawyers, victims and family members.
The new courthouse would allow the city to stop paying more than $400,000 a year to rent space in a hotel for its civil courts. Its close proximity to the new jail would eliminate the current system of busing inmates from the Smith Road jail in northeast Denver to courts downtown.
CON
Opponents ask why Denver does not shuffle offices among city-owned buildings to make more room for courtrooms in the City and County Building.
They suggest that some city offices – namely those of the mayor’s staff and the City Council chambers – could be moved to the adjacent Wellington E. Webb Municipal Office Building or the Denver Permit Center.
“We should demand efficient use of existing city-owned buildings first,” Donner said.
$6 million extra in operating costs
PRO
City officials say that allotting the $6 million a year in added operating costs of the justice center will be a priority for budgeting and that $6 million is not a huge increase in the overall $750 million budget. In four years, the city believes there should be enough revenue growth to accommodate the facility. Parking revenues from a new garage will be used to help offset the cost.
Additionally, possible federal intervention or moving prisoners to other jurisdictions because of overcrowding could be more costly.
CON
Opponents point to the new county jail in Portland, Ore., that was supposed to open nine months ago but has remained empty because that city can’t pay for the operational costs.
If revenues remain flat in Denver, they say, that $6 million could be siphoned away from other important city agencies or programs.
Before constructing a justice center, the city should have an exact plan on how to pay for the its operation, they say.
Staff writer Kris Hudson can be reached at 303-820-1593 or khudson@denverpost.com.
