The Colorado independent recently published an article saying that Denver will no longer be jailing people over $50 fines. This is great!

Why does this make any sense in the first place? It costs Boulder county $150 per day to keep someone in jail. I recently saw and met Sheriff Pelle at a panel in Boulder Colorado. He discussed what I call ‘community policing’ where he is trying to focus on mental health treatment instead of punishment. With a goal of keeping productive members of society productive with the correct, science based, treatments. This helps save the community money and aggravation in the long run.

One of the things Sheriff Pelle mentioned was the cycle these non violent offenders get stuck in. They can’t pay the fine so they end up in jail, costing the tax payer $150 per day. They then lose their job, and are no longer paying taxes. Once out of jail they have a record and now can’t find a job and become a burden on our system.
I applaud Sheriff Pelle and the Boulder community for how they are tackling the mental health and opioid epidemic in our community.