CSU, county entities rely on criminals’ labor

Petty thieves, traffic violators and other criminal offenders remove the remains of revelry from Colorado State University’s Hughes Stadium and Moby Arena in Fort Collins.

They pay for the privilege of picking up pizza boxes, beer cups and other trash left in the stands of Colorado’s second-largest public university.

In return for the nearly free labor, offenders of various ages and backgrounds avoid serving time behind bars.

Taxpayers, nonprofits and government-supported organizations like CSU save thousands of dollars annually through labor provided by crews from Larimer County’s Alternative Sentencing Department. The department enables offenders of lesser crimes to stay with their jobs, families and communities in a way jail does not.

“They’re not slave drivers or anything. I feel I’ve been treated like I was staff,” James Taylor said in between moving stones at The Ranch, Larimer County Fairgrounds.

The 50-year-old Evans resident jumped at the opportunity to serve 15 days with Alternative Sentencing after being convicted of driving with a revoked license.

“I’m the only income in my family, so a jail sentence would have been two weeks without any income,” Taylor said. “That would have been awful.”

Alternative Sentencing’s midweek and workender programs allowed Taylor to avoid losing his job at an area dog kennel. In the programs, judges allow offenders to spend two days per week in custody, trading labor for time off their sentences.

Offenders pay $25 for each two-day period they spend in the programs.

“I feel like I have to pay to work, but it is what it is. As long as I get to keep my job and see my family every day, I’m good,” said Michael Martinez. The 25-year-old restaurant cook from Fort Collins was sentenced to 10 days in the program for violating terms of his probation.

Alternative Sentencing’s work crews are available to all schools, 501(c)(3) nonprofits and government organizations in Larimer County. In 2015, 746 offenders provided organizations with upward of $347,000 worth of work.

CSU was the second-largest user of the programs behind the county fairgrounds. Crews work at the university when the need for manpower is at its highest — before and after games, said Jeff Sutton, building service manager at CSU.

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Adding more staff isn’t viewed as an option during these times because it’s unclear what workers would do when not providing game support. A temp agency or labor company is also not a viable choice for CSU due to budget constraints, Suttton said.

For comparison, the University of Colorado pays its campus Reserve Officers' Training Corps organization about $11,000 per football game to clean up Folsom Field. For basketball games, CU contracts with a janitorial service, said David Plati, CU associate athletic director.

“We’ve always used Alternative Sentencing, so it doesn’t make sense at this point to go out and pay more money for something we’re not having to pay for right now,” Sutton said. “And we’re actually helping the community.”

He estimates the Larimer County’s Alternative Sentencing Department saved his department $93,533 last year. The university started using offenders to help with events before he was hired more than a decade ago.

COST

CSU paid the Alternative Sentencing Department about $38,093 in 2015. The university, the Larimer County Fairgrounds and the Larimer County Landfill all pay more for crews than what the Alternative Sentencing Department typically charges organizations — $50 per day — because they use and depend upon the crews more than other entities in Larimer County.

In 2015, the average crew had 9.5 offenders. Organizations would pay between $474 to $632 for a group of that size to work a typical six- to eight-hour day at the state’s $8.31 hourly minimum wage. Some laborers earn more per hour.

Alternative Sentencing’s flat $50 fee per crew was established “moons and moons ago.” The fee is low enough for struggling nonprofits to afford the labor provided while still partly offsetting department costs, said Laurie Stolen, director of the Alternative Sentencing Department.

“We’re not doing this to be a money maker, we’re here to serve the community,” Stolen said. “I’m not saying we wouldn’t ever consider increasing our rates. It’s just not something we’re looking at now.”

Stolen became director of Alternative Sentencing in 2010. She helped the department transition from being managed by the Larimer County’s Sheriff’s Office to being housed under the county’s Criminal Justice Services Division. In 2012, Alternative Sentencing moved from about 12,000 square feet in the county jail to its own 54,000 square-foot building at 2307 Midpoint Drive in Fort Collins, she said.

Larimer County’s Alternative Sentencing Department is a model for other counties in Colorado. In the state, judges allow some people convicted of lesser, nonviolent crimes to serve their court-ordered sentences through community service, work release, electronic home detention and other programs.

Every judicial district in Colorado is required by law to have alternative sentencing options, but not all counties have programs like Larimer County’s midweek and workender, said Ashley Edstrom, president of Colorado Alternative Sentencing Programs.

“It’s a true benefit to the county taxpayers to have alternative programs because we can do things cheaper than the jail does. We don’t have sworn deputies. We don’t have to have secured locks on all the doors,” Stolen said. “Jail is one of the most expensive places to house people.”

On average, it costs Larimer County’s Alternative Sentencing Department about $37 per day to work with an offender, she said. It’s more like $88 on average for a day in the jail, said Larimer County Sheriff’s Office Lt. Staci Shaffer.

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University of Northern Colorado professor Colleen Fitzpatrick said she wouldn’t mind seeing Alternative Sentencing’s cost savings move beyond taxpayers and nonprofits to private companies.

“If the business could be in a position to teach them skills, I’d have no problem with that,” the criminal justice professor said. “Businesses teaching (offenders) is almost equivalent to paying them because the companies are providing training.”

New skills could help offenders gain employment more effectively. People with criminal records struggle to find jobs even as the nationwide unemployment rate reaches eight-year lows.

Adults with criminal records account for about 20 percent of all nonworking-age people ages 25 to 54, according to a 2014 New York Times/CBS News/Kaiser Family Foundation poll.

“For people who committed lesser crimes, alternative sentencing gives them an opportunity to basically rehabilitate themselves and also stay in the community where they have jobs and family,” Fitzpatrick said. “Keeping people in the community to the extent its reasonable is really really important. As a society, it’s a mistake to just keep throwing people in prison and jail knowing they’re eventually going to get out.”

Growth and data reporter Adrian D. Garcia can be reached at 970-224-7835 or Twitter.com/ adriandgarcia. For a weekly roundup of his stories and other business news sign up for the Biz Beat newsletter atbit.ly/bizbeatsignup.

At a glance

A snapshot of Larimer County Alternative Sentencing’s 2015 midweek and workender programs:

The Larimer County Fairgrounds, CSU and the Larimer County Landfill reported the amount they paid to the Larimer County Alternative Sentencing Department in 2015 for using midweek and workender work crews. The tax-supported organizations have intergovernmental agreements with the department to pay more than the typical $50 flat fee that Alternative Sentencing charges other nonprofits and tax-supported organizations.

The United States Forest Service paid $1,000 for 11 crews in 2015. All other organizations paid the $50 fee, according to the Alternative Sentencing Department.

The average crew contained 9.5 offenders in 2015. The estimated labor value was calculated using the average crew size working six to eight hours at Colorado’s minimum wage — $8.31 per hour.

Jail vs. Alternative Sentencing

Larimer County saved an estimated $352,910 in 2015 by placing offenders in Larimer County’s midweek and workender programs instead of jail.

The Larimer County Alternative Sentencing Department programs included 746 offenders last year. Each served an average of nine days helping the community.

On average, it costs $37 per day for an offender to be in Alternative Sentencing versus $87.68 to be in jail, according to data from Alternative Sentencing and the Larimer County Sheriff’s Office.