The Denver jail keeps unreliable data on its mental health programs, is failing to adequately monitor its contracts with mental health providers and could not show whether its transgender inmates are housed according to their preference, according to an audit released Thursday. The Denver Sheriff Department offers an array of programs to help inmates deal […]
Denver Sheriff Department
Posted inCOVID, Health, News
2 Denver deputies with COVID-19 die in less than 2 weeks
Two sheriff’s deputies who contracted COVID-19 have died in less than two weeks. The Denver Sheriff Department announced the death of Deputy Daniel “Duke” Trujillo on Thursday. The former Marine was a 7-year department veteran who worked for the city’s downtown jail. “We ask that you keep his family in your thoughts and prayers and […]
Posted inCrime and Courts, Election 2020, News, Politics and Government
Colorado parolees are now allowed to vote. And advocates are rushing to register them.
A 2019 law that restored voting rights to more than 11,000 people on parole in Colorado is driving new voter registration efforts ahead of the November election. The Colorado Criminal Justice Reform Coalition and the Latino Coalition for Community Leadership are aiming to register 5,000 people who are out on parole. An earlier effort that […]
Posted inColoradans, COVID, Crime and Courts, News, Politics and Government
Day and night: Organizers of Denver protests say mayhem after dark is muddying their message
Since George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis last week, protests have erupted throughout the country and around the world in a collective outcry against police brutality and the generations of pain left in its wake. “The death of George has been a tipping point,” said Lindsay Minter, a community leader who helped organize peaceful protests at […]
Posted inColoradans, News
A volunteer army has answered Colorado’s need for masks. Denver’s jails are one recent beneficiary.
When the new coronavirus emerged in Colorado, the Denver Sheriff Department knew it would need protective masks to limit the spread of the illness in the close quarters of its Downtown Detention Center and in the larger Denver County Jail on Smith Road. Disposable surgical masks donated by the Denver Health Foundation filled the immediate […]
Posted inCOVID, News
In Colorado prisons and jails, a piecemeal approach to the threat of coronavirus
There are nearly 20,000 adult prison inmates in Colorado (about one-fifth of whom are older than 60), and thousands more in county jails. Those involved at all levels of the criminal justice system are concerned that if COVID-19 finds its way inside a prison or jail, there will be little ability to stop its spread. […]
Posted inBusiness, Education, Environment, Growth, News, Politics and Government
How Colorado’s rural and urban food communities are coming together
Every day, Greeley-Evans District 6 school cafeterias serve fruits and vegetables that look like real fruits and vegetables, because they are. Most of the meals are made from scratch. And the district, which serves about 14,000 meals a day, is working with about a dozen local farmers to add more fresh produce to the school […]
Posted inCrime and Courts, News, Politics and Government
Colorado jails can’t hold people accused of low-level crimes in lieu of bail anymore. And that means current inmates could be released.
Gov. Jared Polis’ signed a bill Thursday preventing people accused of many low-level offenses — such as petty, traffic or most municipal charges — from being jailed because they can’t pay their cash bail. That also means people currently locked up in Colorado on those types of charges, who are unable to pay their bail, […]
Posted inCrime and Courts, News, Politics and Government
Colorado’s prisons offer free tampons to female inmates. The state’s jails might soon be required to as well.
Women locked up in state prisons have access to free tampons, but that’s not the case in all of Colorado’s jails. House Bill 1224 making its way through the Colorado General Assembly mandates that every county and municipal jail offer free feminine hygiene products to inmates who need them. Colorado lawmakers in 2017 passed a […]