The recent reports certainly must give Denver citizens pause. Serious crime is on the rise. Arrests are down. The city doesn’t have enough police officers. And the jails are so overcrowded that officials are talking about housing some inmates in tents as soon as next week.
All this leads us to one conclusion: the mayor and his brain trust had better be doing some serious long-term thinking about the future of Denver’s criminal justice landscape. Voters just approved a new downtown jail that would house 1,500 inmates by 2009 and ease the overcrowding at the main jail on Smith Road, which in turn is scheduled for renovation by 2010. But before the first shovelful of dirt is turned at either site, planners need to update their projections.
One of the things we’ve heard lately is that jail sentences are getting longer. If one day tacked on to a jail sentence nets an additional 120 inmates on any given day, the impact will be significant. And just imagine when we add more police officers. And what if morale improves and the current officers start making as many arrests as they used to? Arrests dropped 35 percent over the past six years, not because crime is on the decline, we’re told, but due to the reduced police force, overcrowded jails and a shortage of other resources. We don’t wish to become a society of jails – obviously alternative punishment and crime prevention programs should be a priority – but we also don’t want to see the crime rate rise because the city is short of basic resources.
Out at Smith Road, a storage facility is being renovated to house 100 minimum-security inmates by December, but in the meantime the city’s two jails are 50 percent over capacity. Until the storage space is converted to prison cells, city officials are showing creativity, being practical and calling attention to the problem by drawing up a plan to erect a big tent at the main jail site by the end of next week. Sheriff Division Chief William Lovingier said it is legal, safe, humane and temporary. Boulder has done it in the past. Arizona still does. And, of course, our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan seem to manage.
“The tent will have heaters, metal bunks, just not metal walls,” Lovingier said. It will butt up against the current jail’s gymnasium building where inmates will have easy access to showers and bathrooms. “It’s a lot safer and more humane than packing people into cells at the city jail,” Lovingier said. And many citizens would probably agree it’s better than releasing some inmates early.
