7th Judicial District, Colorado
The Setting
Delta County sits on the Western Slope of Colorado and is part of the 7th Judicial District, which spans six counties covering a vast, rural geographic area. The county operated a pretrial program within local government for several years, achieving an 80 percent public safety success rate and strong court appearance outcomes. When that program ended due to shifting local priorities, the practitioner who had built it responded by founding a nonprofit, the Pathways Project, specifically to rebuild and expand pretrial services across the entire judicial district. No nonprofit has previously operated pretrial services in Colorado.
The Challenge
Rebuilding pretrial services in a community after a program gap required more than funding. It required a strategic approach to stakeholder trust, tool selection, governance design, and sequencing of implementation across six counties with meaningfully different stakeholder dynamics and resource environments. The practitioner also had to navigate a statutory framework that required advisory board structures and specific accountability mechanisms while designing a model flexible enough to reflect each county's distinct needs.
The Strategy
Before applying for grant funding, the practitioner maintained all judicial relationships from the previous program, continued attending coalitions and boards that kept her connected to the same stakeholders, and began writing policies in advance of any advisory board meetings. The reasoning was straightforward: it is always more productive to bring a draft to the table than to start from nothing.
For the risk assessment tool, the practitioner deliberately chose the Public Safety Assessment over the instrument previously used, specifically because law enforcement stakeholders are more receptive to it. The previous tool's reliance on self-report answers had created credibility challenges with prosecutors and law enforcement. Selecting a tool with broad law enforcement acceptance was a precondition for long-term stakeholder acceptance, not just an operational decision.
The nonprofit model uses a tiered advisory board structure: individual county boards feed into a district-wide board. This gives each county a sense of local ownership and input, which the practitioner identified as essential in rural communities where stakeholders resist one-size-fits-all programs.
A behavioral health fast track is built into the program design from the start. A partner behavioral health agency, identified during a shared opioid council presentation in which the two organizations realized their work was complementary, will offer voluntary treatment enrollment at the bond hearing itself. Individuals who voluntarily agree to treatment receive supervision that reflects their engagement. Nothing is mandated. The program was awarded a $672,000 infrastructure grant from the local opioid council to track behavioral health outcomes specifically, filling a gap the original program did not address.
“I don't have any fantasies that I'm going to develop one policy guideline and have it fit all six counties. The stakeholders in each county need to have a say in how it's going to be operated within their own community.”
— Pretrial practitioner, Delta County
What Made It Work
The practitioner's approach to sequencing implementation across the six counties reflects deliberate relationship management. Rather than launching simultaneously in all jurisdictions, she is building from counties where support is already strong, letting outcomes accumulate, and timing entry into the remaining counties to coincide with conditions that are most favorable. That sequencing reflects a clear-eyed read of the local landscape rather than an assumption that goodwill will follow intent.
The newspaper series the practitioner wrote before the program was funded is a transferable approach. Three articles in a local paper, focused on what pretrial services is, what the data shows, and what a community gains from having a program in place, ran before any grant was awarded. Public education preceded the program announcement.
Tracking behavioral health outcomes from the start, rather than adding that data layer later, positions the program to demonstrate value in terms that commissioners and community members care about. Cost savings and public safety outcomes together make a more compelling case than either alone.
Considerations for Replication
Programs building or rebuilding in communities where pretrial services have not had consistent support face a credibility gap that data alone cannot close. The practitioner's approach was to maintain every relationship, work through existing coalitions, and return to the table with a stronger structure rather than a defensive posture.
The nonprofit structure is a viable option for rural communities where housing pretrial services within a single government entity creates fragility. Statutory compliance is still required, and advisory board structures must meet state requirements, but operating outside a single agency's budget and leadership line can provide meaningful stability in communities where governmental priorities shift over time.
For programs designing from scratch, building behavioral health integration into the model before implementation, rather than adding it later, changes the supervision relationship from day one. The voluntary nature of the arrangement must be clearly communicated to the court, to the behavioral health partner, and to clients.
In the summary brief
Establish formal governance structures so that pretrial coordination outlasts any single champion.
The Pathways Project, a nonprofit rebuilding pretrial services across Colorado’s 7th Judicial District, designed its governance structure from the start. Individual county advisory boards feed into a district-wide board, giving each of the six counties in the judicial district local ownership and input. This structure is designed for districts in which counties differ meaningfully in stakeholder dynamics and resources.
Also under Strategy 1
This project was supported by Grant No. 15PBJA-22-GK-03661-JAGT awarded by the Bureau of Justice Assistance. The Bureau of Justice Assistance is a component of the Office of Justice Programs, which also includes the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the National Institute of Justice, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, the Office for Victims of Crime, and the Office of Sex Offender Sentencing, Monitoring, Apprehending, Registering, and Tracking. Points of view or opinions in this document are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.