El Paso County sheriff and jail behavioral health staff give council detailed update on mental‑health, homelessness and reentry services

El Paso County Sheriff Joe Roybal and Laura Reidner, behavioral health manager for the El Paso County Jail, briefed the Colorado Springs City Council on the jail’s mental‑health caseload, homelessness among incarcerated people and programs intended to support treatment and reentry.

Roybal told the council the county jail houses mostly local residents and that “when the citizens of the jail of Colorado Springs, in El Paso County come into the jail, they leave healthier than when they arrived.” The presentation summarized staff‑collected statistics, treatment practices and partnerships intended to reduce harm on release.

The data staff presented emphasized high self‑reported prevalence of behavioral‑health needs. Reidner said about 60% of the jail population self‑report having a mental illness; roughly 20% of that group meet the jail’s definition of “seriously mentally ill,” including diagnoses such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and PTSD with psychosis. She also reported that about 25–26% of people in custody reported being homeless and that 37% were receiving psychotropic medications while jailed. Reidner noted those figures come from…