Denver Sheriff Department deputies stand along a 20-foot-high wall painted with a colorful mural in a room for in-person visitation at the Denver County Jail. The mural depicts hands surrounded by doves that signify hope and peace. The large open area is designed as a welcoming space for families to spend time together. The program is offered on Fridays and Saturdays to people who are in custody for low-level crimes.

The walls of the large room are covered with beautiful murals. Nearby smaller rooms are decorated with images of whimsical Disney characters. This is a welcoming space for families. It’s also a space that’s under the shadow of barred windows inside the Denver County Jail, where in-person visits are now being offered for the first time since 2005.

Denver City Council members (left and center) Paul Kashmann and Shontel Lewis join Sheriff Elias Diggins at a ribbon cutting at the Denver County Jail.

This is a full-circle moment for Denver Sheriff Elias Diggins, who oversees the facility at East Smith Rd. and Havana St. “When I was young, I came to this very jail to see my dad when he was incarcerated at this facility,” Diggins says.

The facility is one that NE Denver residents drive by often and most never go inside. Front Porch took part in a media tour of the new visiting area.

In-person visits were available from the opening of the jail in 1954 until 2005. At that time, says Diggins, “most jails in the nation began to do [video-only visits] because the technology allowed us to connect people through monitors and video screens. It helped us combat one of the problems that existed in jails to this day, the introduction of contraband.”

But Diggins said video visits weren’t an ideal solution, so in-person visits were re-started at the end of May after a seven-year process to bring them back.

Diggins says the visits are a chance to let people be face to face with a loved one or friend, and it’s important for families to be “part of the human experience.” He hopes that experiencing a connection leads people in custody to reenter the community better than how they came in.

New murals by artists Sean J. Marshall and Marissa Napoletano cover the walls of the new visiting area.

“We know that in-person visits with family and friends will motivate people who are in custody to want to do better for themselves and to strive for self-improvement,” Diggins adds.

After each visit, the people in custody are screened through new body scanners to ensure no contraband is brought into the jail. “We know that we must balance our security needs with the need to keep people connected in a way that a video call just doesn’t allow,” Diggins says.

The in-person visits are only available on Fridays and Saturdays and last just 30 minutes. (Video visits also are available from the jail lobby for free or remotely at a cost of $8.99 plus tax for 30 minutes.)

The $1.4 million project included updates to the lobby of the Denver County Jail. Some of the money was dedicated to the wall murals as part of the City’s public art program.

Sean J. Marshall, one of the artists on the project, says it’s likely some people scoffed at the idea of investing money to improve a space like this, but he knows it’s worth the investment. Marshall says he knows what it’s like to be in these spaces and subject your loved ones to pain. He spent 20 years incarcerated in prisons all over Colorado.

Window-lined rooms with tables for children and whimsical characters on the walls are part of the new visiting area.

“Most of the incarcerated individuals are going to be returning to society at some point, so while they’re incarcerated, do we want these institutions to serve towards healing these individuals and helping them to become better? I think most of us would say ‘yes’ to that. The families that enter these environments to visit the incarcerated, they don’t deserve to be harmed,” Marshall says.

The visitation program is being rolled out slowly and is offered only to people who are in jail on low-level charges. Family and friends need to make a request on the sheriff’s department website, which can be found at www.denvergov.org.

Front Porch photos by Linda Kotsaftis