Boulder County’s Joe Pelle Center yet to end wait for work release placement

For years, people convicted of certain crimes and sentenced to work release — a program where people live at a halfway house but can leave to go to work — have had to wait, often months, for a spot in Boulder County’s program.

That’s still the case, even with the opening of the county-run Joe Pelle Center, which supporters hoped would eliminate the waitlist for alternative sentencing programs, which aim to keep people convicted of lower-level crimes out of the prison system.

Center leadership says the facility, which opened its doors in December, just needs more time to get a handle on the waitlist, and hopes to do so by July. But until that happens, concerns remain about community safety and whether sentences in Boulder County are being delivered as promised.

“It’s incumbent upon our DAs and sheriffs and judges to ensure that these solutions that everyone supports, which are used as a talking point when we justify a criminal justice system, are actually being delivered to the people,” said Neil Sandhu, a civil rights attorney for Rathod Mohamedbhai LLC, a law firm based in Denver. “If you’re going to hold up work release as this gold standard of reintroducing people to the city, it better be your first priority to make sure it’s actually being delivered to those folks.”

Read the article in its entirety at https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/boulder-countys-joe-pelle-center-yet-to-end-wait-for-work-release-placement/ar-AA24Z7Qx