Cots are commonplace at the Larimer County Jail.

They line the walls of the jail’s housing pods whenever inmate population outnumbers available cells, which is pretty much always for a facility with a footprint that hasn’t grown in about 20 years. The jail’s square footage and services are fit for about 500 people, Larimer County Sheriff Justin Smith said, but its population has topped that almost every month since 2016.

A $75 million expansion will transform the Larimer County Jail by adding nearly 500 beds, overhauling the facility's design and creating more room for mental health and medical services.

Larimer County commissioners approved $8.5 million for the first phase of the jail expansion in the 2019 county budget. Smith hopes to break ground as soon as late this year and finish construction in 2022.

County leaders say the expansion will help the jail keep up with Larimer County’s population growth of about 100,000 people since 2000 and make it a better environment for inmates and deputies.

Opponents of the expansion support the renovations but argue the county should do more to reduce the number of people jailed, especially those who can’t afford to bail out. They also take issue with commissioners’ decision to fund the expansion without a public vote.

'A tipping point'

Jail overcrowding is nothing new for Larimer County.

The jail's population shot up between 2014 and 2017, reaching a peak of 623 inmates in July 2017. Average population has dipped into the 500 to 550 range during most months since 2018, but that’s still more than the jail’s staffing and services, like laundry and food preparation, can comfortably support, Smith said.

And he doesn’t expect the recent population decline to last.

“We’re reaching a tipping point,” Smith said. “We’ve kind of maximized the people that can go into (alternative sentencing programs), so we’re going to see the jail population go up.”

The jail’s 617 beds usually can’t house 617 inmates because more and more people need their own cells or special housing to accommodate mental or behavioral health issues, disabilities and transgender status, among other things.

When jail population tops capacity, Larimer County pays Washington County Jail — about two hours away — to house inmates, making it harder for them to arrange in-person visits with loved ones, defense attorneys and parole officers.

Beyond the Larimer County Jail not having enough room for all inmates, jail staff said the 36-year-old building is long overdue for renovations.

Leaky popcorn ceilings and flecked tiles bedeck its housing pods, illuminated by fluorescent lighting and the occasional window. Inmates and staff rely on swamp coolers to deal with the summer heat. Many parts of the jail have outdated “linear” or “indirect” supervision components — more barriers between the inmates and deputies and poor lines of sight.

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The men’s intake area is an exception: Renovated in 2013, the large, open room looks more like the common area of a college dorm than a jail. Deputies sit behind a desk with no walls or windows separating them from the inmates, who lounge in booths, cots and chairs while they watch TV, talk, read, write letters and meet with defense attorneys or parole officers in one of four conference rooms. Skylights usher in natural light, which is known to improve people’s mood and behavior.

Most of the housing pods have relatively open layouts, and inmates aren’t confined to their cells during the day. That style of supervision makes the jail feel more like a community and allows deputies to get to know inmates, which makes for fewer altercations, jail administrator Capt. Timothy Palmer said.

“The ability to see people and not let them be isolated in a small cave or cell is huge,” Palmer said. “It’s better for us, and it’s better for them.”

But Smith and Palmer want all the jail's housing pods to look more like the men’s intake area. Instead of two-person cells that hold a couple of bunks, desks, a toilet and a water fountain, Smith envisions four- to eight-person dormitories with common bathroom and seating areas.

“Our inmate population has changed,” he said. “We have more people with mental health issues, drug addiction, serious medical issues. Our building isn’t made to accommodate those needs, so we want to expand housing areas with that in mind.”

Because of those changing needs, expanding the jail’s medical unit is another one of Smith’s goals. The unit hasn’t grown since 1983, so inmates who’ve been hospitalized often go straight back to the general population — “from a hospital bed to a steel bunk with a vinyl mattress,” Smith said.

Arguments against expansion

Lynn Thompson, a member of the Fort Collins Homeless Coalition, is on board with plans to make the jail a better environment for inmates, but she said the county can do plenty to improve the jail without adding more beds.

"I think what we could be doing, policy-wise, is taking steps to make sure that nobody who doesn't have to be in jail is spending time in jail," she said.

That means shrinking the group of inmates who are in jail waiting for a trial or sentencing, she said.

As of Thursday, that group made up 68% of the jail’s 501 inmates. About 275 inmates were awaiting trial or sentencing for misdemeanor charges alone, according to the Larimer County Jail's online dashboard.

Smith estimates that about 60% of pretrial inmates can’t bond out of jail because they’ve skipped too many court dates or their charges indicate they pose a risk to the community.

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The other 40% — about 136 people, if you apply Smith’s estimate to the actual jail population — can’t post their bond or choose not to, Smith said.

Larimer County could ease jail overcrowding by getting rid of cash bonds, which require full payment for release, Thompson said. Most inmates can get out of jail by paying a portion of their bond to a bail bondsman, putting up residential property or securing a personal recognizance bond, which is basically a promise you’ll show up to your court dates.

Cash bonds are more common for people who fail to appear in court. They’re typically not very costly (in the $75 to $300 range), but many impoverished and homeless people don’t have a few hundred dollars laying around, Thompson said.

“The impact of cash bail is that if two people are charged with the same crime and they both go to jail, the one who’s rich can afford to pay bail and go home and fight the charges against them from home,” she said. “The person who’s poor sits in jail, unable to get out and facing the trauma of being incarcerated while still being legally innocent. … Their life takes a huge hit, and it just comes back to this wealth-based test on freedom.”

The Coloradoan reviewed the jail’s online list of homeless and transient inmates, who are usually less equipped to cover a cash bond, and found 51 out of 179 of those inmates had at least one cash bond as of Thursday. About the same number were being held on at least one failure-to-appear charge, which is often associated with higher bonds. Most were accused of at least one felony charge, rather than misdemeanors and petty offenses like public indecency, illegal camping and trespassing.

Smith countered that the county has moved away from cash bonds in favor of alternative sentencing programs, which leaders have expanded during the last 15 years to whittle the jail’s population. Those programs include work release, which allows people to work during the day and sleep in a county-run correctional facility at night; community corrections (halfway houses); and Wellness Court, which allows people with mental illness to stay out of jail if they take part in court-supervised treatment programs.

The jail ended up with “the worst that were left,” Smith said.

“All the people who could be pulled out, either taken out pretrial or sentenced to a work program, went to those,” he said. “So what we got was the core who didn’t qualify.”

The county could help more people qualify by offering services like text notifications and transportation options to ensure people don't miss court dates, Thompson said. She added that the savings of forgoing the expansion could be funneled to the county's mental and behavioral health efforts.

What's next

Palmer said the jail isn’t going to add the budgeted 480 beds all at once. Instead, they’ll add about 250 beds and spend the rest of the initial funding on renovations. Along with the $8.5 million budgeted for the jail expansion in 2019, commissioners plan to budget $50.5 million for the project in 2020 and $16.5 million in 2021. That doesn’t include projected operating cost increases of about $9 million a year, according to county budget documents.

Commissioner Steve Johnson said the board will probably fund the jail expansion through certificates of participation, a funding mechanism similar to a mortgage on a home. It’s a common workaround for the Taxpayers' Bill of Rights (TABOR) Amendment, which requires voter approval for increasing taxes or spending tax revenue that outpaces the rate of inflation and population growth.

Thompson said voters should get a say in such a big-ticket item, especially considering that county voters rejected tax increases to fund jail expansion in 2006 and 2011. Voters in 2014 approved a continued sales tax to support the jail.

“It’s frustrating to see the county turn around and, without asking for a vote, without letting this be open to public opinion, go ahead and double the size of the jail anyway,” Thompson said. “I think the voters have been pretty clear about not wanting that.”

Johnson said commissioners are taking public opinion into account. They held a public forum on the jail expansion June 1.

He said the certificates of participation approach is fair because the county will be using existing revenues to fund the jail expansion, which is a key component of its facilities master plan for the next 20 years. The $600 million plan also includes a proposed expansion of Larimer County Justice Center, a new fleet facility and reworking of administration buildings.

The county will probably need to ask voters for funding to accomplish everything in the plan, Johnson said. But he considers the jail expansion a top — and time-sensitive — priority.

“We run the only jail in the county, so it has to be able to meet the needs of the future,” he said. “We feel a great responsibility to do that.”

Jacy Marmaduke covers environment and other topics for the Coloradoan. Follow her on Twitter @jacymarmaduke. Support stories like this one with a digital subscription to the Coloradoan.