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Abstract: 

In November 1979, the Larimer County (CO) Detention Center inmate population was capped at 48 inmates because of a Federal Consent order. Inmates had to be taken to other facilities around the state and remodeling was done to add 24 new beds. To reduce the costs of housing inmates in other facilities, the jail administrators began looking for new ideas. Because of the influx of new arrestees on the weekends, the Sheriff approached the courts and requested that misdemeanor sentences be directly sentenced to a new program instead of straight jail time. The original idea was that defendants with misdemeanor convictions would serve their sentences strictly on the weekends. They were to be housed in a separate location so that they would not affect the jail in any way. This would keep the jail population at a manageable level when the number of new arrests peaked on the weekends. The basic structure of this new program was that the inmates would be sentenced to turn themselves in each weekend at a designated time (0800 hours on Saturday morning) and they would be supervised by civilian staff in a rented county facility away from the main jail. This article summarizes and discusses the outcome of this program.

Keywords: weekender program; work release program; electronic home detention

Affiliations:  1: Larimer County Sheriff’s Office.