The El Paso County Inmate Population
El Paso County's adult inmate population is centered at the El Paso County Jail / Criminal Justice Center, often shortened to CJC in sheriff roster data. The facility is operated by the El Paso County Sheriff's Office at 2739 East Las Vegas Street in Colorado Springs. The 2024 EPSO Annual Report describes a mixed jail population that includes pretrial detainees, jail-sentence inmates, parolees, extradition cases from the 4th Judicial District, people with pending cases in other Colorado counties, and people with pending cases in federal agencies.
The daily count rises and falls as arrests arrive, courts remand defendants, bonds are posted, sentences begin, holds are cleared, and inmates are transported to the Colorado Department of Corrections, other counties, medical appointments, or the Colorado Mental Health Institute at Pueblo. That means the El Paso County inmate population is not a single static list. It is a custody system tied to the sheriff's Intake and Release Section, Court Services, the Terry Harris Judicial Complex, the Colorado Judicial Branch, and several state or federal fallback locators.
The official El Paso County Sheriff's Office homepage gives local scale: the county covers more than 2,130 square miles and serves a population exceeding 740,000 residents in the Pikes Peak region. Sheriff Joseph J. Roybal leads the office. His public biography notes that his early EPSO assignments included the Detention Bureau, the Security Division, Special Response Team, and Court and Transport work at the El Paso County Courthouse.
El Paso County Inmate Population Statistics
The most useful current population number from official county sources is the 2024 EPSO Annual Report statement that the jail averaged nearly 1,250 incarcerated citizens in custody at any given time. The El Paso County 2024 Adopted Budget separately says the Sheriff's Detention Bureau served an approximate daily average jail population close to 1,300 inmates. The current official rated bed capacity was not located in the sheriff pages, budget material, or annual-report details reviewed, so it should not be inferred from the average population.
| Measure | Figure | Source / Year |
|---|---|---|
| Average jail custody population | Nearly 1,250 incarcerated citizens at any given time | EPSO 2024 Annual Report, released Oct. 16, 2025 |
| Budget service load | Close to 1,300 inmates as approximate daily average | El Paso County 2024 Adopted Budget |
| Housing layout | 23 housing units plus a medical section | EPSO 2024 Annual Report |
| Rated bed capacity | Not located in current official sources reviewed | EPSO and county source review |
| Annual bookings | 15,430 total inmates booked | EPSO 2023 Annual Report |
| Releases | 15,055 releases | EPSO 2023 Annual Report |
| Sex breakdown of bookings | 72% male / 28% female | EPSO 2023 Annual Report |
| Average length of stay | 31.82 days across all categories | EPSO 2023 Annual Report |
El Paso County Inmate Population Trends and Sources
The official sources reviewed did not publish a clean multi-year average-daily-population series for the jail. Instead, they provide different but useful views of the custody workload: a 2024 annual-report average, a 2024 budget planning average, and 2023 intake, release, classification, transport, and program statistics. Vera Incarceration Trends and the Jail Data Initiative were identified as high-authority trend resources, but exact chart values were not exported during research, so this page does not insert unverified dashboard numbers.
The Vera Institute El Paso County trends dashboard is a matching source for broader trend context.
Use trend dashboards as context for longer-term jail and prison rates, but use EPSO annual reports and county budget documents for the official local operating figures shown in the tables here.
| Year / Source | Population or Workload Figure | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 2024 EPSO Annual Report | Nearly 1,250 in custody at any given time | Best official current jail population statement located |
| 2024 El Paso County Budget | Close to 1,300 approximate daily average | Budget context for the Detention Bureau |
| 2023 EPSO Annual Report | 15,430 booked, 15,055 released | Booking and release workload, not a real-time count |
| 2023 EPSO Annual Report | 24,387 inmates transported to court | Court Services workload affecting custody movement |
| 2026 Vera dashboard | Trend dashboard located, exact values not inserted | High-authority trend source updated Feb. 9, 2026 |
Who Makes Up the El Paso County Inmate Population
The official roster publishes demographic details for individual jail profiles, including sex, race, eye color, hair color, height, weight, DOB field, and scars or marks. It does not publish a public aggregate demographic dashboard on the sheriff roster page. The 2023 EPSO Annual Report does publish a booking sex breakdown of 72% male and 28% female, plus category-level bookings and average length of stay.
- Pretrial and sentenced local custody - The jail holds recent arrestees, pretrial detainees, county-sentenced inmates, people remanded from court, and people on holds or warrants.
- Booking sex breakdown - EPSO reported 2023 bookings as 72% male and 28% female.
- Length of stay - The 2023 all-category average was 31.82 days, with category averages varying sharply by legal status.
- Other-agency relationships - The annual report lists DOC inmates, military inmates, holds, and limited federal billing categories, but billing data is not the same as a total custody count.
| 2023 Category | Bookings | Average Length of Stay |
|---|---|---|
| Pretrial detainees, misdemeanor | 3,460 | 4.55 days |
| Sentenced inmates, felony | 728 | 70.87 days |
| Sentenced inmates, misdemeanor | 909 | 30.67 days |
| Hold inmates | 4,766 | 59.81 days |
| DOC inmates, sentenced | 1,904 | 108.12 days |
| Military inmates | 1,646 | 27.52 days |
| All categories | 15,430 | 31.82 days |
El Paso County Jail Capacity and Overcrowding
Current official rated capacity was not located in the reviewed EPSO pages, the 2023 annual-report lines, the 2024 annual-report details, or the 2024 budget summary. The safe way to describe capacity is to say that EPSO reported nearly 1,250 average custody in 2024 and 23 housing units plus a medical section, while the county budget used a close-to-1,300 daily average in planning. Do not convert those averages into a bed capacity or overcrowding ratio.
EPSO inmate-services material connects jail crowding pressures to recidivism, judicial-system demand, and reentry needs. Jail Based Behavioral Health Services, TRUST clinical de-escalation, Gateways Through the Rockies, vocational training, medication-assisted therapy education, release planning, and other programs are part of the sheriff's documented response to population and conditions pressures. The 2024 Colorado Jail Standards final report adds a statewide governance layer because county jails must comply with adopted standards by July 1, 2026.
Laws Governing the El Paso County Inmate Population
Colorado law separates ordinary public records from criminal justice records. For El Paso County jail users, that distinction matters because a roster lookup, a booking report, a booking photograph request, a court document request, and a jail population data request may all travel through different legal channels. The county roster is the starting point for current custody, while EPSO Records handles many CCJRA/CORA requests and Colorado Judicial handles court-file documents.
Key Statutes:
C.R.S. 24-72-201 and 24-72-203 - Colorado policy favors access to public records at reasonable times unless another law allows or requires withholding.
C.R.S. 24-72-301 et seq. and 24-72-303 - Colorado Criminal Justice Records Act rules govern sheriff and law-enforcement records, including records of official actions.
C.R.S. 24-72-305.5 - Booking photographs are criminal justice records, but Colorado restricts commercial mugshot misuse and pay-to-remove solicitation.
C.R.S. 17-26-118 - Jail keepers must maintain daily jail data, including population, operational capacity, bookings, release dates, charges, bond, and deaths, and make the daily record available at reasonable hours.
C.R.S. 30-10-606 - Deaths in law-enforcement custody or while incarcerated in a public institution trigger coroner inquiry duties.
El Paso County and the State Prison Population
No current adult Colorado Department of Corrections inmate-housing prison was verified in El Paso County. CDOC headquarters is in Colorado Springs at 1250 Academy Park Loop, but headquarters is an administrative location, not a local prison population. A person arrested in El Paso County generally starts in the county jail and local court process. If that person is convicted and sentenced to DOC, the search moves from the sheriff roster to the statewide CDOC Offender Search.
The CDOC Offender Search page is the matching source for sentenced state-prison lookup.
CDOC search fields include DOC number, last name, first name, gender, and an anti-bot prompt. CDOC warns that data may be inaccurate and should be confirmed with the department for official use.
Definition: El Paso County Inmate Population
El Paso County inmate population means the people held in local sheriff custody at the El Paso County Jail / Criminal Justice Center, plus related custody categories that affect local search decisions, such as county-sentenced inmates, pretrial detainees, parolees, extradition cases, holds, people awaiting DOC movement, and people whose status must be checked through court, state, federal, immigration, or notification systems.
How to Search the El Paso County Inmate Population
The official county lookup is the El Paso County Sheriff Search for Inmates page. It is free and no login was observed. The page searches the sheriff endpoint at search.php by last name, booking number, or both. EPSO warns that the information is not intended for official law-enforcement or criminal-justice action and says users should contact the booking desk before acting on it.
The official sheriff inmate-search page shows the public form used for roster lookup.
The search form is narrow by design. A last name or booking number is enough to begin, but users should confirm with the booking desk before posting bond, traveling to the jail, or relying on a warrant or release status.
- Open the official EPSO Search for Inmates page.
- Enter a last name with at least two characters, a 10-character booking number, or both.
- Click Search and review the results table for booking number, first name, middle name, and last name.
- Click the booking number to open the booking detail screen.
- Review the demographic and location table, then the Charges, Holds, and Warrants tables.
- Call the booking desk at 719-390-2151 before taking official action.
- If no result appears, try spelling variants, retry from desktop if mobile results seem wrong, call the jail, check court records, or search CDOC, BOP, ICE ODLS, and VINELink as the custody stage requires.
Current Inmate Lookup in El Paso County
Current adult county-jail lookup runs through EPSO, not through a city police roster. Colorado Springs Police Department releases commonly route arrestees to the El Paso County Jail, and no standalone Colorado Springs municipal jail roster was verified. EPSO's public search returns a JSON roster and detail profile. If no records are found, the page writes "No records found." If the service fails, it may show "Search service error" or "Unable to complete search."
| Field Label | Type | Required | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Last Name | Text | Optional, but one search field is needed | Minimum length is two characters. The HTML field is named searchName. |
| Booking Number | Text | Optional, but one search field is needed | Minimum length is ten characters. A sample format observed was a 10-digit number. |
| Search | Button | Not applicable | Submits a GET request to the sheriff search endpoint. |
EPSO's public snippet also warns that mobile results may not be accurate. If a phone search behaves oddly, repeat the lookup on a desktop browser or call the booking desk at 719-390-2151. The jail general information line is 719-390-2000.
Past and Released Inmate Records
EPSO did not publish a verified roster refresh interval or a fixed released-inmate retention period in the reviewed public roster material. A missing result is not proof that a person was never arrested. The person may have been released, transferred, booked under a different name, moved to DOC, held by another county, or placed in federal or immigration custody.
For historical booking material, use the EPSO Records Unit rather than the live roster alone. The Records & Video Request page lists police reports, booking reports, booking photographs, call screens, dispatch recordings, and body-camera video among criminal justice record examples. Records Unit contacts are 719-520-7177, fax 719-520-7171, shrrecordsrelease@elpasoco.com, and 27 East Vermijo Avenue, Colorado Springs, CO 80903.
What an El Paso County Inmate Record Shows
The inspected sheriff profile data is custody oriented. It helps identify the booking, current jail building label, physical descriptors, charges, bonds, holds, warrants, and possible release-date rows. It does not replace the court file, and the inspected public roster code did not render a mugshot or booking-photo image field.
| Field | What It Shows |
|---|---|
| Booking Number | Unique booking record number; result link opens the detail profile. |
| Name and DOB | First, middle, last name, and a public DOB field observed as year-only in sample data. |
| Physical descriptors | Eyes, hair, height, weight, sex, race, and scars or marks if populated. |
| Location | Building or facility label, such as CJC. |
| Charges | Court date, court division, court case number, bond type, bond amount, and release-date row if not suppressed. |
| Holds | Hold type description and hold code when publicly rendered. |
| Warrants | Warrant number, description, and level when publicly rendered. |
County Jail vs. State Prison: Where to Look
The most common search mistake is using the wrong custody system. The El Paso County jail roster is for people currently held in the sheriff-operated adult jail. CDOC is for sentenced state prisoners and people under state corrections supervision. BOP is federal. ICE ODLS is immigration detention. VINELink supports custody and release notification where data is available, but it is not the official booking report.
| County Jail | State Prison (DOC) | |
|---|---|---|
| Who Is Held | Recent arrestees, pretrial detainees, county sentences, remands, holds, warrants | People sentenced or supervised through Colorado Department of Corrections |
| Run By | El Paso County Sheriff's Office | Colorado Department of Corrections |
| Where to Look | EPSO Search for Inmates and booking desk | CDOC Offender Search |
| Local Facility | El Paso County Jail / Criminal Justice Center | No current adult CDOC prison verified in El Paso County |
| Record Focus | Booking, charges, bond, holds, warrants, CJC location | DOC number, facility assignment, convictions, release or parole information |
State, Federal, ICE, and Notification Search Channels
Use every access channel that matches the custody stage. For current county jail custody, search the EPSO roster first, then call the booking desk at 719-390-2151 or the jail information line at 719-390-2000. For a booking report, booking photograph, incident report, call screen, dispatch recording, or body-camera request, use the EPSO Records Unit and CCJRA/CORA process. For formal charges, court dates, and documents, use Colorado Judicial docket search and the El Paso County court records request process.
For sentenced state prisoners, use CDOC Offender Search. For federal prisoners after commitment, use the BOP inmate locator. Federal pretrial detainees are controlled by the U.S. Marshals Service and may not appear in BOP before sentencing. For immigration detention, use ICE ODLS. ICE's listed Colorado dedicated detention facility is in Aurora, and no dedicated ICE facility was verified in El Paso County, Colorado. For release notification, use VINELink where Colorado custody data is available. No verified El Paso County Sheriff mobile app with inmate lookup was found.
El Paso County Detention Facilities
The adult county jail and the youth-services center are separate facilities with different populations, operators, and lookup paths. Do not use the adult jail roster to search for youth-services commitments, and do not treat the CDHS youth center as an adult county jail.
- El Paso County Jail / Criminal Justice Center - Sheriff-operated adult county jail for arrestees, pretrial detainees, county-sentenced inmates, remands, warrants, holds, and people awaiting transport.
- Spring Creek Youth Services Center - Colorado Department of Human Services secure youth treatment and assessment center for male youth ages 12 to 20 committed to the Division of Youth Services.
El Paso County Inmate Population FAQ
How big is the El Paso County inmate population?
The 2024 EPSO Annual Report says the jail averaged nearly 1,250 incarcerated citizens in custody at any given time. The 2024 county budget described a close-to-1,300 approximate daily average service load for the Sheriff's Detention Bureau. Those are operating averages, not a rated capacity. Current official rated capacity was not located in the reviewed sources.
How do I search the El Paso County inmate population?
Use the official EPSO Search for Inmates page by last name or booking number. Review the booking number results, open the detail profile, then confirm official custody, bond, warrant, or release action with the booking desk at 719-390-2151. If the person is sentenced to state prison, use CDOC instead of the county roster.
Can I look up a released or past inmate?
The sheriff roster did not publish a verified released-inmate retention period. If a person is no longer listed, use the EPSO Records Unit for releasable booking reports or booking photographs, check Colorado Judicial for court records, and search CDOC, BOP, ICE ODLS, or VINELink when the custody stage points outside the county jail.
Does the El Paso County roster show mugshots?
The official public roster code inspected on June 1, 2026 did not render a public mugshot field or image URL. EPSO does list booking photographs as criminal justice records and publishes a media booking-photo request form. Colorado law restricts commercial booking-photo misuse and pay-to-remove solicitation.