The Detention Center
Adams County Detention Facility
- Operated byAdams County Sheriff's Office, Detention Facility Division
- Jail address150 North 19th Ave., Brighton, CO 80601
- FinancingRefunding of a '2009 Detention Center' bond is folded into the county's 2015 Certificate of Participation (COP) lease-leaseback, per the county's own Adopted Budget
- Planned capital work2024 Adopted Budget lists $5,000,000 for 'programming an updated or replacement Detention Facility' (Capital Facilities Fund/CIP)
- BedsNot found — no bed-capacity figure published
Source: Adams County — 2024 Adopted Budget · checked 2026-08-24
Transparency rating
5/10Partial- ✓The jail is named
- ✓Who is in custody
- ✗Beds and daily population — not published
- ✓What it costs taxpayers
- ✓Deaths in custody
- ✗PREA audits — not published
- ✗Independent inspection — not published
- ✗Who else it holds, and for how much — not published
- ✓How to post bond
- ✗Phone, video and commissary rates — not published
The Building
You paid for it. Here is what the record says it cost.
- Year builtNot found
- Original costNot found
- Paid for by2015 Certificate of Participation lease-leaseback refunds a 2009 Detention Center bond (per Adopted Budget)
- BedsNot found
Since then
- 2024 Adopted Budget: $5,000,000 for programming an updated or replacement Detention Facility
The Sheriff
Sheriff Gene Claps
- Runs the jailYes — the Adams County Sheriff's Office Detention Facility Division operates the Adams County Detention Facility
- How the office is filledElected sheriff; Colorado's elected sheriff runs the jail in Adams County (not a consolidated city-county like Denver or Broomfield)
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Adams County Sheriff's Office — Executive Leadership · checked 2026-08-24
The Judges
Colorado's District Court and County Court judges are state judicial officers, not county officials. They are initially appointed by the Governor through a judicial nominating commission and subsequently face retention elections.
Adams County Court — Judges
- Martin J. Flaum II
- Michael B. Garlan
- Marques Ivey
- Madoche Jean
- Lara Jimenez
- Leroy Kirby
- Joshua Nowak
- Mariana Vielma
- The county's bond schedule
- Share of the jail population held pretrial
- Median time from booking to first appearance
Source: the state judiciary · checked 2026-08-24
The County Commissioners
They pay for the jail. The sheriff runs it.
- What they controlThe detention budget, the building itself, and the agreements that let other agencies rent its beds.
- What they don'tDay-to-day operations. The sheriff is separately elected and answers to voters, not to the board.
- The boardBoard of County Commissioners →
- Where the jail money is decidedAgendas and minutes →
Notes on the record
- Published news release: on May 22, 2026, a 28-year-old male inmate was found unresponsive at the Adams County Detention Facility and later pronounced dead at a hospital; the Adams County Coroner's Office is determining cause and manner of death. This is a real, sheriff's-office-published finding.
- A $30 booking fee and an Access Secured Deposits online payment option for inmate accounts are published, but no specific phone/video/commissary per-minute or per-item rates were found.
- Colorado's CRS 17-26-118 requires quarterly jail population and death reporting to the state Jail Data Dashboard (https://ors.colorado.gov/ors-jaildata), but that is a state publication, not the county's own site, so it does not count toward these county-published checks.
- Adams County Board of County Commissioners — five districts: Julie Duran Mullica (D1), Kathy Henson (D2), Emma Pinter (D3), Steve O'Dorisio (D4), Lynn Baca (D5).
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Adams County and what it costs the people who live here. Nationally, almost 77% of the people who died in local jails in 2019 had not been convicted of anything, and suicide was the leading single cause of those deaths (Bureau of Justice Statistics, Mortality in Local Jails, 2000–2019).
How much is your sheriff — and your judge — costing you?
Your VOTE is POWERFUL.
The sheriff who runs this jail is elected. So are the commissioners who pay for it.
Names verified 2026-08-24 · dollars and outcomes still being gathered