Last week, a man and a woman were arrested after allegedly carjacking a 63-year-old man and injuring him.

It was the second time each had recently been arrested.

One of the suspects in the incident, Antwanette Springs, 33, had been arrested Aug. 17 on a warrant for contempt of court. The other suspect, Lawrence Maxwell, 27, had been arrested and charged on Aug. 16 after reportedly crashing a stolen car, and he had a parole violation warrant at that time.

According to police, the carjacking on Aug. 29 happened within five hours of Springs and Maxwell being released from custody. They're both now being held at jail in lieu of $35,000 bail on charges they accrued from the alleged carjacking incident.

Also last week, police arrested an auto theft suspect who was out of jail on a personal recognizance bond from a previous auto theft case he was arrested for in June.

Those are two recent examples of a growing frustration the Pueblo Police Department has felt for a while: dangerous suspects whom officers have arrested being released from jail quickly and returning to the streets.

"It's frustrating because we can't do anything about it. The officer frustration level is very high. Officers are concerned and upset that they arrest someone and sometimes within 24 hours they are back on the street," said Sgt. Eric Gonzales of the police department. "On some of the recent examples, which are all auto theft-related, the suspects were either on a PR bond or recently released from jail for some unknown reason.

"Our hands are tied because that's on the court's side. All we can do is if there are suspects out there committing crimes is arrest them again. It's going to be dangerous for either an officer or a member of the community. The 63-year-old man that got injured is a good example of this. That could've been a lot worse because he was holding onto the car as he was dragged along and couldn't let go. It was only when they slowed down he was able to let go. It's frustrating on that end because officers don't want to get hurt and they don't want to see anyone else get hurt."

Part of the police department's frustrations is the pretrial services program administered by Rocky Mountain Offender Management Systems that was implemented here last July.

The assessment tool is designed to use factors such as the severity of the charge, criminal history, behavioral history and familial ties to the community to form a report that judges can use to guide them in deciding what kind of bail amounts to set for defendants. Ultimately, a judge still is responsible for setting bail.

The program -- which applies an evidence-based approach called the Colorado Pretrial Assessment Tool to evaluate which inmates are best suited for release to be monitored while awaiting trial and which pose a higher risk to the community and should be kept in jail on higher bail amounts -- marked a new approach for the county in dealing with inmates booked into jail on suspicion of criminal charges.

RMOMS was contracted by the Pueblo County administration to administer the assessment inmates take and do the follow-up monitoring of defendants referred to the program.

Last year, former Police Chief Luis Velez told The Pueblo Chieftain that when he and other officials began looking into implementing pretrial services in Pueblo, they studied a model that was used in Grand Junction.

Velez said the problem, however, is that the program was not instituted the same way here as it was in Grand Junction and other places. In-house county employees are used in Grand Junction and elsewhere to run the program instead of having a third party run it. Velez said it was recommended by him and other officials that the Pueblo program be run the same way as it is in Grand Junction.

"Here it was felt that it would be better to use a third-party vendor, but that decision now has led us to the point where we're seeing like a revolving door," Velez said last year. "There are people going out on lower levels of bond that should not go out."

Adding to the department's frustration is the low amount of money some suspects are required to pay to some bail bonds companies, according to Gonzales.

"Some bondsmen are letting people out on 3 to 4 percent of bonds," Gonzales said. "We've asked about that. I remember a bondsman used to charge 10 percent (of the court-ordered bond); (some) between 10 to 15 percent. Some of them now do 3 to 4 percent."

District Attorney Jeff Chostner also weighed in on the matter, saying: "Our office articulates what we believe to be an appropriate bond for suspects to the courts, based on the individual involved and public safety. Release of some charged individuals has been a continuing conversation with the courts. We do not always agree with the courts on what appropriate (bonds)should be. Various cases highlight the need to be vigilant for the public."

ryans@chieftain.com