Denver jails are missing nearly a third of their staff. What went wrong?

12 min. read
Denver Sheriff Department's Deputy Maes talks to an inmate in a special management unit of Denver's downtown jail during a regular wellness check. Sept. 24, 2025.
Kevin J. Beaty/Denverite

Denver Sheriff Department employees have been quitting with a clear warning to city leaders: The jails are understaffed, and it’s putting deputies, civilian staff and inmates in danger, according to resignation letters obtained by Denverite.

The department, which Sheriff Elias Diggins calls “the largest mental health provider in the city and county of Denver,” only has 67 percent of its deputy positions filled.

The agency’s staffing level is far lower than those of other metro sheriff departments. And Denver’s other safety agencies — the police and fire departments — are close to fully staffed.

To understand the causes and impact of short staffing, Denverite examined more than 50 resignation letters and other documents, reviewed department data about jail deaths and staffing levels, and interviewed the sheriff, deputies, criminal justice reform advocates and union officials to better understand the department’s problems. 

Deputies are working 24 hours of mandatory overtime each month — some far more. They are paid time-and-a-half, a costly arrangement for a city in a budget crisis. Excess hours take a toll on deputies’ mental health and their families. And the department is losing deputies faster than it can train them.

Inside a special management unit of Denver's downtown jail. Sept. 24, 2025.
Kevin J. Beaty/Denverite

Dennis Grandinetti, a former deputy who worked for the department for nine years, outlined the problems in a resignation letter pleading for solutions. There are times when only a single deputy is supervising pods where inmates spend their days and nights.

“This creates dangerous situations for deputies and inmates alike,” Grandinetti wrote. “Staff are regularly overworked, forced into excessive overtime, and left exhausted, which not only impacts professional performance but also takes a toll on their personal lives.” 

Grandinetti couldn’t be reached for comment.

While jail is hidden from the daily lives of most Denverites, the institution has an oversized impact on issues residents care about: drug addiction, mental health, homelessness and crime.

Nine people have died in the jails in 2025, an average of almost one per month, according to data from the Office of the Medical Examiner. Eight of those individuals were in the sheriff’s custody, and one was in police custody.

In the past ten months, the jail has seen more than twice the average annual number of jail deaths than in pre-pandemic years. Four people died from overdoses, one was strangled, three died of natural causes, and one in an unspecified accident.

Inside a special management unit of Denver's downtown jail. Sept. 24, 2025.
Kevin J. Beaty/Denverite

Understaffing creates risks for deputies too. 

One deputy was allegedly assaulted by an inmate while overseeing a pod alone. Inmates came to the rescue before a colleague could arrive, a deputy told Denverite on the condition of anonymity. Like other deputies Denverite interviewed, this one declined to go on the record out of fear of retaliation. Sheriff officials said they couldn’t detail the incident because it’s under investigation.

“The sheriff's deputies, in particular, get treated like the stepchildren of the public safety department,” said Lisa Calderón, a former mayoral candidate who ran the city’s reentry program from 2009 to 2017. “So while [the Denver Police Department] gets everything they ask for and more, the sheriff deputies who are literally housed with incarcerated people, day in and day out, 24/7, get less respect, less pay and less consideration in their negotiations than the other law enforcement departments.”

And the city’s jails could soon come under even greater pressure. Mayor Mike Johnston has pledged to increase policing of “quality of life crimes” to push people toward mental health and addiction health care. The jail could be an increasingly critical part of that strategy. Yet for years it has been hobbled by low staffing, poor morale and complaints about leadership.

The problems in the department are no secret to the sheriff. 

Denver sheriff deputies say they have one of the toughest jobs in city government. They rarely make headlines, unless someone dies in their custody or an excessive force case is settled. Deputies don’t walk beats, so residents mostly see deputies at life’s most challenging moments: during arrests, evictions and at court. 

“The work is hard,” Diggins said in an interview with Denverite. “Some people can do it, and some people can't.”

Denver Sheriff Elias Diggins listens to Mayor Mike Johnston speak about the city’s priorities for 2024, during a press conference Monday, Feb. 26, 2024 at the City and County Building.
Hart Van Denburg/CPR News

Diggins has worked for the department since 1994 and became sheriff in 2020, along with a previous stint as interim sheriff. He acknowledged understaffing is a problem – one facing some other jails and prisons nationwide. 

“We prioritize safety and security and try to figure out dynamically: How do we staff our facilities without burning people out?” Diggins said. “I think for us, it's a fine balance every single day to figure out how to do that.”

Deputies face numerous challenges, he acknowledged. They respond to fights, administer reversal drugs to stop overdoses, give mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to people who have quit breathing and are sometimes assaulted.

Recently, an inmate came out of the shower naked and attempted to bite a deputy’s head, Diggins said. 

Despite the challenges, the sheriff tries to support employees’ mental health, encouraging paid time off.

“You have to be strong, physically, mentally, spiritually and emotionally, and so for our staff, we try to help them to understand that this is not a sprint, it's a marathon, and we got to figure out ways to help them to stay well,” Diggins said. “And so we're working on that.”

The sheriff regularly meets with his deputies' unions and trade groups and maintains an open-door policy for employees to vent their concerns. 

“We listen to our staff — that's both uniformed and professional staff as well — and take their suggestions at hand,” he said. “So it's not just them bringing the challenges that they have at work that we listen to, but it's also the suggestions on how to make things better. We try to be as supportive as we can to them.”

Denver Sheriff Classification Sgt. Sherrod (from left) and Deputy Maes prep for a wellness check in a special management unit of Denver's downtown jail. Sept. 24, 2025.
Kevin J. Beaty/Denverite

Deputies are breaking under stress. 

While the department provides some self-care perks — massage chairs donated by American Furniture Warehouse, a fitness center, quiet rooms and therapy – some deputies say they don’t have time to take care of themselves. 

“The sheriff has implemented some great programs,” said Robert Pablo, a leader with the Fraternal Order of the Police Lodge #27, which represents sheriff deputies. “But how can we run these properly if we don't have enough staffing?”

Instead, deputies are falling asleep driving home after 16-hour shifts, Pablo said. They’re making mistakes at work. Deputies lose time with their children and spouses while working long, stressful shifts.

Diggins called deputies “the unseen and unsung heroes that come to work to protect the community.” But Pablo said the deputies don’t feel valued by the city’s leadership or the community.

In 2024, the department saw a surge of new deputy recruits as the mayor made hiring a top priority: 135 in total. Yet this year, the department has struggled to maintain its gains. 

As of the end of August, more than 84 sheriff employees had quit, retired or been fired. Of those, 68 were uniformed staff. In the same time frame, just 54 deputy recruits had joined the department.

Denver Sheriff Department cadets graduate in a ceremony at the University of Denver. July 11, 2025.
Kevin J. Beaty/Denverite

Outgoing employees often said they were leaving the department because of a lack of leadership; poor workplace culture; a lack of career advancement opportunities; and mandatory overtime. 

Despite being the largest sheriff department in the state, the Denver department pays less than some others around the metro, Pablo said.

Denver deputies’ salary range runs from $73,855 for entry-level deputies to $102,914 for longtime employees. New deputies also receive a $3,000 signing bonus. 

Other metro counties pay more. In Adams County, deputies make between $77,571 and $108,599; and in Arapahoe County, deputies make between $79,538 and $108,118. 

Better salaries likely contribute to higher staffing rates in those agencies: Arapahoe County’s department is 95 percent staffed. Betty Wright, who works in human resources for the Arapahoe County Sheriff’s Office, attributes that to her agency’s workplace culture, training and recruiting standards.

Arapahoe County Sheriff deputies stand inside the Colorado Convention Center during the Jewish National Fund's annual Global Conference for Israel, as anti-zionist protesters demonstrate outside. Nov. 30, 2023.
Kevin J. Beaty/Denverite

Arapahoe County sometimes hires deputies who previously worked in Denver. When that happens, they require significant retraining to fit within the county’s workplace culture, Wright said.

“We encourage people to treat each other right,” Wright said.

Grandinetti called on leadership to “prioritize staff welfare, safety, and operational efficiency.”

The department’s management issues stretch back years. In 2015, after a string of excessive force cases in the jails, then-auditor Dennis Gallagher blasted the Department of Public Safety for mismanagement of the jails and pointed to understaffing as a serious issue. 

The death of Michael Marshall, who asphyxiated on vomit while being restrained during a mental health episode, sparked community outrage in 2015, resulting in a $4.65 million settlement and reforms at the jail.

The department has made changes over the years meant to protect inmates and respect their rights, including restricting strip searches. But deputies like Grandinetti blame some of those reforms for an increase in contraband, overdoses and inmate-on-staff assaults. 

“This compromises not only the safety of staff but also that of inmates and civilians working in our facilities,” he wrote.

Badges for Denver Sheriff Department cadets ready to graduate in a ceremony at the University of Denver. July 11, 2025.
Kevin J. Beaty/Denverite

Diggins says the department has made significant changes since Grandinetti raised those concerns. It now uses airport-grade X-ray machines to search arriving inmates, and it has quit accepting postal mail for inmates, a move meant to stop contraband. Instead, they can only receive electronic communications and packages shipped directly from retailers. 

Meanwhile, some deputies have complained that lengthy use-of-force investigations have them second-guessing whether they should defend themselves when attacked.

“Long, unresolved internal investigations — especially when ultimately unfounded — can have lasting effects on both morale and mental health,” wrote Deputy Stephanie Serrano Pichardo in her resignation letter. (Denverite was not able to reach her for an interview.) “Creating a culture where employees feel heard, valued, and protected from punitive ambiguity would go a long way in encouraging retention.”

Diggins faces complaints about leadership.

An employee survey from 2024 showed just half of the deputies viewed their work favorably, and nearly half reported they did not feel proud to work for the department.

While deputies have made headlines for their misdeeds, their complaints about leadership often go unheard by the public. “The easy route is to blame deputies for the department’s shortcomings, but problems in any organization start at the top and work their way down,” Grandinetti wrote. “Leadership is where accountability must begin.”

Calderón worries the sheriff and mayor ignore the voices of deputies and inmates. She pushed Johnston to bring new leadership to the department when he first took office, and she was disappointed when he reappointed Diggins without a competitive process.

Lisa Calderón speaks as Denver County employees and Teamsters Union organizers picket outside of the Wellington E. Webb Municipal Building before a Career Service Board hearing. June 18, 2025.
Kevin J. Beaty/Denverite

She worries Diggins does too little to advocate for deputies to the mayor, though the sheriff disputed that criticism, arguing he’s a strong champion. 

“I do have an audience with the mayor, and he listens,” Diggins said. “I think he's known for change, and isn't afraid to take on big challenges and do things differently than they've been done before.”

In September, Diggins told Denverite he would be retiring in spring 2028 after a 31-year career with the department. 

What’s next for the Denver Sheriff Department? 

Denver City Council is negotiating a union contract for sheriff deputies with the Fraternal Order of the Police. 

Diggins, Pablo and the deputies hope to see Denver offer more competitive pay. Both Denver police officers and firefighters will receive multiple salary increases in the next few years.

But police and fire negotiated their contracts before the mayor announced deep budget cuts — though police contracts were finalized afterward. 

Calderón hopes sheriff deputies still receive better pay, treatment and new leadership. 

She would like the city to fully staff the jail, expand funding for mental health treatment, reentry programs and homelessness services, and do a better job listening to deputies, inmates and their families about safety and service issues in the jail.

Denver Sheriff Department cadets graduate in a ceremony at the University of Denver. July 11, 2025.
Kevin J. Beaty/Denverite

“My concern is that there will be no change, that despite surveys and feedback and deputies writing letters about how poorly the jail is being run and how dangerous it is, that politics have overcome common sense in terms of fixing the problems that have been pervasive in that jail,” Calderón said.

Johnston is looking to close a $200 million gap in his proposed 2026 budget, and the vast majority of city workers are not unionized and will not see raises next year. Sheriff employees fear the same will happen to them. 

Whether the deputies can make their case for more resources, higher pay and stronger leadership in the current budget environment is uncertain. But until they do, Pablo said, the department will have a hard time staffing at sufficient levels.

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