FORT COLLINS, Colo.—Michael Puhr, 20, could be in prison today.
A guy said something nasty about his girlfriend at a party last fall, so Puhr punched him in the mouth.
“I got real mad,” he said. “I could’ve gone to prison six years.”
Instead, he lives in a building next door to the Larimer County Jail in Fort Collins. He wakes at 4:30 a.m., rides a bicycle to work and returns in time to spend 12 hours as a work-release resident at the Alternative Sentencing Department.
At check-in every night, he and the other roughly 100 residents are searched and must take a mandatory breath-alcohol test. They’re subject to random drug screenings and must abide by all the rules.
About 85 percent of them succeed. One mistake, and they go directly to booking at the jail.
“Most people are happy to be here,” said Bryan Schissler, senior specialist at the department. “They like getting more fresh air and keeping their lives going.”
They don’t even have to tell their employers about it. Alternative sentencing allows offenders the opportunity to keep their jobs, pay rent and maintain a semblance of freedom while serving criminal sentences.
The programs, such as daily work release and two-days-per-week “workenders,” have been so popular with the judicial system and successful with participants that the county in October is more than tripling the capacity, from 100 beds to 360.
A new, $12.4 million building is to be operational by October.
Residents are charged about $18 per night to live there, plus $20 for each drug screening. Most serve between 90 and 180 days, and most of them are misdemeanor offenders. They aren’t required to tell their employers about the sentences.
Larimer County Judge Robert Rand said it’s preferable to hand down alternative sentences to people who qualify, as programs such as work release give “some hope” of keeping people out of the system long-term.
Jail, however, tends to leave people with no money and no job.
“It’s a devastating situation to be in, and it doesn’t encourage people to be self-reliant and responsible,” Rand said, adding that many times people’s families will “move on” while they’re incarcerated.
Recidivism rates for people who enter the corrections system are high, with about 43 percent of ex-convicts committing crimes within three years of their release, according to a study by the Pew Center on the States last year cited in a report from The Associated Press.
Rand said alternative sentencing is meant for people who don’t pose threats to themselves and others. People who’ve stacked up numerous drunken-driving convictions, for example, also aren’t likely to be offered alternative sentences, he said.
Daryl Gary, 37, got his second DUI last June. He’s serving 100 days in work-release rather than a year in jail.
“It was a lapse in judgment on my part, and I’m more than happy to pay for what I did,” he said.
Gary remains employed as a bartender in Fort Collins. He pays his bills. He gets to keep his two dogs, Dallas and Bella, and his home will still be there when he completes the program.
Despite working around alcohol, Gary said he has good reasons not to drink.
“I would’ve lost my dogs. I would have lost my apartment and my belongings,” he said of a jail sentence. “I would lose everything and start fresh.”
With residents paying to stay in the alternative sentencing unit, the county and taxpayers save the expense of keeping them locked in jail.
It costs the county about $88 per day to keep an inmate in Larimer County Jail, and it costs about $23 per day for a work-release resident after the individual has paid the daily fee.
Larimer County Criminal Justice Services Director Gary Darling said that, when people get out of jail without jobs, further government finances go toward food stamps and services to take care of the people’s families.
Alternative sentencing programs have been used in Larimer County since the 1980s. The new building is to house 162 work-release residents, with the rest of the 360 beds going to the “workender” and “midweek” programs that operate similar to work-release but with fewer days.
This results in 62 more beds for work release, which if diverted from jail could save about $1.5 million. But many people in jail wouldn’t be eligible for work release.
Darling said it’s expected the alternative-sentencing expansion will help delay the need for more beds in the jail, but eventually there will be a need for more.
Larimer County incarcerates about 158 residents per 100,000, which is significantly less than the state’s most recently tabulated average of 292 in 2005.
Rand said alternative sentencing is “clearly more of a rehabilitative model” than jails, and alternative sentencing programs across the country are growing at a faster rate than jails.
Meanwhile, Michael Puhr said he’s grateful for the chance at avoiding prison. He’s serving a 30-day work-release sentence to be followed by three years of probation. He gets jobs through a temp agency, sometimes digging ditches or shoveling snow.
Puhr joked with fellow residents over coffee one recent morning, playing with a deck of cards and talking about his plans for the future and possibly engineering school.
“I definitely will think twice before hitting a guy,” he said, adding that it “blew my mind” how seriously assault is taken.
Puhr said of the work-release program, “It’s helpful but it’s also detrimental. If it wasn’t a punishment, why would we be here?”
