Denver City Councilman Doug Linkhart asks whether it’s smart for the city to add a new jail annex even as it is opening a new 1,500-bed jail this summer.
Because the annex would cost $25 million to build and roughly $5 million a year to operate, the question is worth considering — especially since the city will have far more beds than it needs.
Linkhart, who chairs a committee focused on crime prevention and control, doesn’t think the 256 beds that would be added in the new annex at the existing Smith Road complex will be needed for years.
“I’m just saying, let’s not build a white elephant,” Linkhart tells us.
Voters approved a new justice complex with extra jail space in 2005. The $378 million authorization is dedicated to the project.
If the annex is shelved, Linkhart says taxpayers could be spared the extra $25 million or the city could ask voters in a future referendum to dedicate the savings toward other projects.
Denver’s jail space, overcrowded only a few years ago, has improved as judges see inmates sooner, alternative sentencing programs keep beds open, and an overall drop in crime has reduced demand. Meanwhile, the current trend is to rethink some sentencing laws, which would also reduce demand on jails.
Plans currently call for destroying an old facility at Smith Road and adding the new space for 256 beds that would bring the total number of beds at the complex to 1,225. With the 1,500 at the new justice center downtown, Denver would have 2,725 beds, about 700 more than needed.
Linkhart says projections show it could be 30 years before Denver needs that many beds for inmates.
Jail officials disagree. More aggressive projections show that capacity would be reached sooner, and the extra space could be used for training programs, or leased to other agencies, such as U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, according to The Post’s Christopher N. Osher.
Wardens also point out it is safer to have excess beds than a full house, in order to keep problem inmates out of double-bunked cells.
If the City Council ultimately balks at Linkhart’s suggestion, he admits there are other uses. He’s interested in a “step-down” program wherein the state could work with Denver to decrease prison recidivism by transitioning inmates into a program that could be housed there.
Ultimately, we think Linkhart is asking a worthwhile question in these tough economic times. Though further study might reveal that Denver should proceed as planned, it seems reasonable to assume the landscape has shifted since 2005, and that trends indicate we won’t see a surge in demand for extra beds. If so, it would be counter to what cities have seen for years, where new jails were overcrowded almost as soon as they opened.
Still, we encourage the City Council to dig into the issue.
