By population, Boulder County has one of the lowest incarceration rates along the Front Range, but more than half of Boulder County prisoners come from Longmont, according to a new report from the Prison Policy Initiative.
The Prison Policy Initiative is a nonprofit that produces research on mass criminalization. Thanks to a 2020 Colorado law ending prison gerrymandering — the practice of drawing representative districts that count people in prison as legal residents of the prison rather than their home community — the group was able to break down where people in state prison come from by community.
In 2020, according to the data shared by the Prison Policy Initiative, 362 people in Boulder County were in state prison. That’s equal to 109 people per 100,000, making it the 18th lowest imprisonment rate by county in the state and third lowest on the Front Range after Douglas and Broomfield counties.
Notably, more than half the Boulder County residents in state prison — 200 people — were from Longmont, equal to an imprisonment rate of 202 per 100,000 in the city. This is compared to 67 Boulder residents, equal to an imprisonment rate of 62 per 100,000.
The data also was broken down by Longmont’s three zip codes, which saw significant differences in imprisonment by population. The 80501 zip code, covering the central part of the city, has the highest imprisonment rate at 321 per 100,000. With 138 residents from 80501 in state prison, that zip code alone accounted for nearly 40% of incarcerated Boulder County residents in 2020.
The 80503 zip code, covering Longmont west of Hover and nearby towns, had an imprisonment rate of 70 per 100,000. The 80504 zip code, which includes northeast Longmont and surrounding areas, had a rate of 101 per 100,000.
Statewide, the average number of incarcerated people is 245 per 100,000. With more than 14,000 Colorado residents in state prison, incarcerated people come from all over with some counties either over or underrepresented in the prison population.
San Juan and Mineral counties — both with a total population of fewer than 1,000 — have zero residents in state prison. Alamosa County, a small county in southern Colorado, has the highest rate of incarceration at 577 per 100,000,
Looking at counties with more than 100,000 people, Pueblo, Mesa and Denver counties have the highest imprisonment rates at 472, 419 and 378 per 100,000 respectively.
The Prison Policy Institute noted that Colorado communities with a higher number of Hispanic or Latino residents often saw higher incarceration rates, reflecting trends of these communities being overrepresented in the state prison population.
The Prison Policy Institute said the data can be used to determine the best locations for community-based programs that help prevent involvement with the criminal legal system.
There are some limits to the data, which documents the home address of just over 14,000 people in state prisons compared to the state’s total prison population of 17,506 on Census day. People in Colorado prisons from other states were not included in the count, and unknown addresses or those notated as only “homeless” could not be allocated a specific home location.
Additionally, people incarcerated in a federal prison were not included because the federal Bureau of Prisons refused to share home address data with the Colorado legislature, according to the Prison Policy Institute. Similarly, those incarcerated in a local jail were not included as the focus was on state prisons.
