The Detention Center
Pueblo County Detention Center (the county also calls it the Pueblo County Detention Facility)
- Operated byPueblo County Sheriff's Office — Detention Bureau
- Detention Center physical address3830 Medal of Honor Blvd, Pueblo, CO 81008
- Jail reception / booking and bond window909 Court Street, Pueblo, CO 81003
- Detention Bureau Chief / WardenPaul J. Toth
- Division captainsDawn Ballas (Security), Jeremy Bacor (Operations), Caitlin Garcia (Judicial and Intake)
- Average daily population published by the county2016 exceeded 700; 2017 749; 2018 721; 2019 661; 2020 482
- Accreditation stated by the countyAmerican Correctional Association accreditation received January 2011
- Who it holdsCounty states it services local, state and federal law enforcement entities; about one-third of the population is sentenced to the jail
- Rated bed capacityNot published on the county or sheriff's site
- 2026 proposed detention budgetPersonnel services about $18,089,257; professional/contract services about $8,257,561 including $5,750,000 medical and $1,400,000 meal preparation
Source: Pueblo County Sheriff — Detention Center · checked 2026-08-24
Transparency rating
4/10Partial- ✓The jail is named
- ✓Who is in custody
- ✗Beds and daily population — not published
- ✓What it costs taxpayers
- ✗Deaths in custody — not published
- ✗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 byNot found
- BedsNot found
Since then
- Not found
The Sheriff
Sheriff David J. Lucero
- Runs the jailYes — the Pueblo County Sheriff's Office Detention Bureau operates the Pueblo County Detention Center
- How the office is filledElected county sheriff
- UndersheriffShelley Bryant
- Sheriff's main office909 Court Street, Pueblo, CO 81003
Still needed
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Pueblo County Sheriff — Meet the Command Staff · checked 2026-08-24
The Judges
Colorado judges are appointed through a judicial nominating commission and then face retention elections. They are state judicial officers, not county officials. County court judges typically set bond at first appearance; the sheriff's bond page cites CRS 16-4-102 on a payer's rights.
10th Judicial District Court — Chief Judge
- Gregory Styduhar
10th Judicial District Court — District Judges
- William Alexander
- Michelle Chostner
- Allison P. Ernst
- Thomas Flesher
- Amiel Markenson
- Tim O'Shea
- Tayler Thomas
Pueblo County Court — County Court Judges
- Steve Fieldman
- Roberto Silva
- Margaret Vellar
Still needed
- 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
- Pueblo is the largest county in this group and publishes the most. The Sheriff's Office site names the Pueblo County Detention Center, gives both its Medal of Honor Blvd address and the 909 Court Street booking/bond location, names the Detention Bureau Chief/Warden and the three division captains, and runs a live inmate lookup.
- Capacity is marked 'no': the Detention Center page publishes average daily population figures for 2016 through 2020 (749 in 2017, 721 in 2018, 661 in 2019, 482 in 2020) but no rated bed capacity and no current population count.
- Inspections is marked 'no': the Detention Center page states the facility received American Correctional Association accreditation in January 2011, and the site has an Agency Accreditations page (https://www.pueblosheriff.com/384/Agency-Accreditations), but no inspection or accreditation report or result document was found published there.
- Fees is marked 'no': the Inmate Visitation page (https://www.pueblosheriff.com/424/Inmate-Visitation) says on-site lobby kiosk visits are free up to 80 minutes per inmate per week and that remote video visits are charged by the minute, and the Inmate Telephone Services page (https://www.pueblosheriff.com/419/Inmate-Telephone-Services) names a contracted vendor, but no actual per-minute, phone or commissary rate schedule is published.
- Contracts is marked 'no': the county states the Detention Bureau services local, state and federal law enforcement entities, but no intergovernmental housing agreement or per-diem rate is published.
- The bond page does publish the statutory notice under CRS 16-4-102, including that a $10 bond fee and a maximum 3.5% credit card fee are chargeable as a debt after release and that no other bond-related fees may be charged.
- No death-in-custody report and no PREA audit result was found on either county.pueblo.org or pueblosheriff.com. URLs checked include https://www.pueblosheriff.com/SiteMap, https://www.pueblosheriff.com/290/Accountability-Reports and https://county.pueblo.org/online-services.
- Colorado's statewide Jail Data Dashboard (https://ors.colorado.gov/ors-jaildata) collects quarterly population and death data under CRS 17-26-118, but that is state publishing and does not satisfy the county-site checks.
- The county also publishes budget data through OpenGov (https://county.pueblo.org/budget-and-finance-department/opengov), which includes a jail spending view.
- Board of County Commissioners — Paula McPheeters, Zach Swearingen and Miles Lucero, elected from three districts; office at 215 W 10th Street, Pueblo, CO 81003. No dedicated jail or detention sales-tax levy was found: the county's 1A Community Improvement Program funds parks, trails, streetscapes and transportation, not the detention centre.
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Pueblo 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