As soon as next month, Boulder County will begin housing people sentenced to community corrections or ordered to work-release programs in its newly built alternative sentencing facility, according to county officials. The opening of the center marks a long-sought shift in the county’s approach to incarceration.
The 252-bed Joe Pelle Center is expected to help reduce crowding in the county jail by offering programs that support reentry and stable employment outside of jail. It will also allow the county to stop contracting with private halfway houses.
The minimum-security residential facility is designed to be more humane than a jail or prison for people transitioning back into the community or sentenced to programs that allow them to work. County officials said the facility will provide treatment and education as residents prepare to return to the community, with a goal of reducing their odds of ending up back in jail.
Unlike a state prison or county jail, the Joe Pelle Center — named for the former Boulder County sheriff — has carpeted floors, large windows, dormitories with bunk beds, storage lockers and bathrooms with private stalls and showers. People are also allowed to smoke outside and can earn passes through chores or showing responsibility that let them leave the facility for several hours. It includes a kitchen where people can learn to cook as well.
The Joe Pelle Center does not yet have an outdoor recreation area. It is located at 3260 Airport Rd., near the county jail and about a half-mile from the nearest bus stop. The building also does not appear to include dedicated spaces for working remotely.
“This is really a very meaningful step forward in our work in Boulder County,” said Monica Rotner, division manager for Boulder County Community Justice Services who oversees the alternative sentencing facility, during a ribbon-cutting ceremony earlier this month. “It’s really our commitment to community-based alternatives to incarceration.”
The facility will be staffed by non-police personnel, according to county officials. The county plans to provide mental health and substance use programming but has not announced a launch date. At least initially, residents will not be charged to stay there.
For years, the county has contracted out community corrections to private halfway houses: Longmont Community Treatment Center, run by CoreCivic, and ICCS-Boulder, run by Intervention Community Corrections Services. The county will end those contracts in mid-January, according to county officials.
Criminal justice advocates have long raised philosophical concerns about private prisons and halfway houses. In Colorado, many people who leave a halfway house return to jail within a few years.
Additionally, Boulder County ranks below the state average for the share of people approved for transfer from prison to community corrections, according to state data. Private halfway houses play a key role in whether those transitions move forward, along with the county’s Community Corrections Board.
Ken Kupfner, Boulder County’s assistant district attorney, said the new facility will give the county more control over who gets to move out of prison and into a lower-security community corrections bed, where they can get the “stabilization they need” to transition back into the community.
He said the additional capacity will also allow the District Attorney’s Office to sentence more people to work release, which currently has a waitlist of weeks or months. Work release allows people to serve a sentence while keeping their job, helping them maintain income, and can also be used to transition people out of jail.
“These are people who should be returning to the community,” Kupfner said during the ceremony. “They’ve been sentenced to work release but we don’t have a bed for them in our current system, and so they sit in an overcrowded Boulder County Jail.”
Originally designed to hold 287 people when it opened in 1988, the jail has recently housed more than 400 people, according to state data. In recent years, people detained or incarcerated at the jail have slept on the floor of the gymnasium due to limited space. Jail officials cite a backlog in the court system and the need to separate people charged with more serious crimes into single-person cells for safety reasons, among other explanations.
Joe Pelle, who served as Boulder County sheriff from 2003 to 2023, said the decision to pursue the 2018 sales tax to pay for the new facility was motivated in part by overwhelmed staff and crowding at the jail. The sales tax passed with about 75% approval.
“If I had gone to the community and asked to build a bigger jail, I’m not sure that would happen,” he said at the ceremony. “Asking them to build an alternative to that jail, that’s what carried the bucket.”
Update: This story was updated on Oct. 28 to include the address of the Joe Pelle Center.
Where is this facility located?
It is located at 3260 Airport Rd., near the county jail. We have updated the story to include the address.
John
Where is it? I’m asking because community support for this project would seem to require familiarity and acceptance of the challenges, rather than attempted anonymity which usually provokes anxiety.
I am so happy that they finally have done this with this jail. I personally have been in both the jail and to both of the halfway houses a long time ago when I just kept getting rearrested for FTA and small theft and drug charges. I was homeless then and couldn’t seem to break free of the revolving door that the Courts and Police seem to have set up. Thank god I got out of that whole mess. With the help of housing and moving out of Boulder , I started my life over again! This is what the community needs ! No more overcrowding by arresting the people who are already struggling and making it harder to get out. I hope it does what you want it to do. Hope and a chance to rebuild and live life normally. Treat each other with respect and they with flourish!
It is located at 3260 Airport Rd., near the jail. We have updated the story to include the address.
John
This is an important piece of the puzzle and offers a short term solution to a long term problem. Where will people go when their sentence is completed? Typically those in work release land low paying jobs and clearly have a background. This means that they cannot afford an apartment in the area and in many cases, cannot pass a landlord background check. What about homeless inmates, where are they going when they get released? Both of these scenarios are well known and the final outcome is they end up either in unstable housing situations or back on the streets, parks or creeks, reoffending and going right back to jail. How about building four tenant units with shared common spaces, similar to student housing, that offers reasonable rents and deposits, second chance background checks, and support services that provide ongoing recovery and mental health support. When are we going to start looking at the bigger picture and take the parks, creeks, and trails off the table for these folks?