Denver County Correctional Medical Facility

The Denver County Correctional Care Medical Facility at 777 Bannock Street in Denver, Colorado is an 83-bed maximum-security-designated jail medical facility operated jointly by the Denver Sheriff's Department and Denver Health & Hospital Authority. The facility is co-located with Denver Health Medical Center — the city's public safety-net hospital — and serves as the medical-mission facility within the Denver County jail system. Denver Health employees, contracted by the Denver Sheriff's Department, provide on-site medical, nursing, behavioral health, and dental services for the patient population of the Denver County Jail (on Smith Road) and the Downtown Detention Center as well as the specialized Correctional Care Medical Facility itself. This guide walks through what makes this facility distinct from Denver's other jail facilities, how it fits into the Denver Sheriff Department's custody infrastructure, and what families need to know about visiting, mail, and deposits.

About the Denver Correctional Care Medical Facility

The Denver Correctional Care Medical Facility on Bannock Street is unusual within the Denver Sheriff Department's custody infrastructure because it is primarily a medical-mission facility rather than a standard pretrial or sentenced-population jail. The Denver Sheriff Department operates two main custody facilities — the Denver County Jail on Smith Road (which handles the larger sentenced and pretrial population) and the Downtown Detention Center (the intake and shorter-term facility downtown) — and the Correctional Care Medical Facility functions as a specialized medical unit for people in Denver Sheriff Department custody who need intensive medical or behavioral-health care beyond what the main jail facilities can provide.

The facility's co-location with Denver Health Medical Center is central to its mission. Denver Health is Denver's public safety-net hospital and one of the largest hospitals in the Rocky Mountain region, and having jail medical operations physically adjacent to a full-service hospital allows for rapid escalation of care when needed. Denver Health corrections nurses provide the range of services listed in the quick-facts table — Primary Care, Intake Health Assessments, Urgent/Emergent Care, Chronic Disease Clinics, Women's Care, Behavioral Health Services, and Dental. If your loved one is at the Correctional Care Medical Facility rather than the Denver County Jail or Downtown Detention Center, it typically reflects a specific medical or behavioral-health need that requires the specialized capabilities of the Bannock Street site.

How to find someone in Denver Sheriff Department custody

Every person in Denver Sheriff Department custody has an inmate ID assigned at booking. That number, plus the full legal name used at booking, is required on every letter, deposit, and visit registration. Use the Denver Sheriff Department's inmate search or search by name on AllRecentArrests.us to confirm the current custody location among the three DSD facilities. If your loved one has been moved to the Correctional Care Medical Facility from the main jail or Downtown Detention Center for medical reasons, that placement typically shows on the inmate search. Our guide on how to find someone in jail or prison covers the search process more generally.

Visitation, mail, and deposits for people at the Correctional Care Medical Facility

Because the Correctional Care Medical Facility is a medical-mission site, visitation, mail, and deposit procedures are typically coordinated through the Denver Sheriff Department's overall inmate-services infrastructure with adaptations for the medical setting. Confirm the specific current procedures for the Correctional Care Medical Facility by contacting the Denver Sheriff Department at (303) 436-6000. For inmates receiving acute medical or hospice-type care, visitation may take place at bedside under staff supervision rather than in a standard visiting room, and coordination with the treating medical team is often part of the arrangement.

For general Denver Sheriff Department procedures: personal mail goes to the inmate at the specific facility's address, deposits are handled through the DSD-contracted deposit vendor (typically with online, phone, and lobby-kiosk options), and phone service runs through the DSD-contracted phone vendor. Legal mail from an attorney or court, clearly marked as legal correspondence, is opened only in the inmate's presence. Our overviews of how to send money to an inmate, how to call an inmate, and how to send mail to an inmate cover the general county-jail model.

Medical care questions and family involvement

Because the Correctional Care Medical Facility exists specifically to provide intensive medical care to people in DSD custody, family members should not hesitate to ask questions about a loved one's care. HIPAA restricts what medical staff can share with family without the patient's consent, but families can typically provide relevant medical history, medication information, and social context that helps clinical staff. If your loved one has consented to family involvement in his care, ask about medical decision-making processes, discharge planning back to the general jail population when appropriate, and any behavioral-health treatment planning.

For urgent family emergencies such as a death, serious illness, or birth, call the Denver Sheriff Department at (303) 436-6000 with the inmate's name and ID and ask for a chaplain or unit staff to relay the message. If you are worried about a loved one's medical care, mental health, or safety inside, contact both the Denver Sheriff Department and Denver Health, keep a written record of who you spoke with and when, and escalate in writing if the initial response is inadequate.

Denver Sheriff Department infrastructure and court process

The Denver Sheriff Department runs the county custody operations for the City and County of Denver (which are combined into a single consolidated city-county government). Denver criminal cases are handled through the Second Judicial District Court of Colorado (felonies) and Denver County Court (misdemeanors and preliminary matters), with case records searchable through the Colorado Judicial Branch's public records portal. Bond decisions in Colorado can be handled through commercial surety with a licensed Colorado bail bondsman (typically for a 10-15 percent non-refundable premium), through cash bond, personal recognizance, or unsecured bond conditions.

What the Denver County Correctional Medical Facility actually is

This record points to 777 Bannock Street, which is Denver Health Medical Center — the city's hospital. Denver Health operates a guarded and locked unit inside the hospital for patients who are in custody, and provides contracted medical, nursing, behavioural health and dental care inside Denver's jails. It is a hospital unit and a clinical service, not a jail you can visit or book a visit at.

The services provided here are outpatient clinic services for Denver patients and contract patients from the state corrections department and local jails, contract physician services and medical direction, primary care, intake health assessments, urgent and emergency care, chronic disease clinics, women's care and behavioural health services. That is a clinical remit rather than a custodial one — people are here because of a medical or behavioural health need, not because this is where they are held.

If you are trying to reach someone in custody, these are the facilities that actually hold people:

• Denver Downtown Detention Center — (720) 913-3791
• Denver County Jail — 10500 East Smith Road, Denver, (720) 913-3642

Someone taken to hospital from one of those facilities remains in custody the whole time, and remains booked there. So the place to ask about them is the facility holding them, not the hospital — the hospital will not confirm a patient in custody, and the custody record does not move when the person does.

How big Denver's custody facilities are

Because this record is not itself a custody facility, the numbers worth knowing belong to the two that are. The most recent federal jail census, covering 2019, counted them separately:

• Denver Downtown Detention Center — a rated and design capacity of 1,500, a peak population of 1,306
• Denver County Jail — a rated and design capacity of 830, a peak population of 738

Both were recorded as providing medical and mental health services on site — that is the contracted Denver Health care described above, delivered inside the jails rather than at the hospital.

Those are census figures for a single reporting year and are now several years old, so treat them as the scale of each facility rather than a current count. Neither figure describes this record — this address is the hospital, and it holds no one on its own authority.

Who runs the Denver County Correctional Medical Facility

The institution's main line is 303-436-6000. Use it for anything urgent — a medical emergency, a safety concern, confirming whether visiting is running — and ask for the watch commander or the shift supervisor rather than leaving a message with whoever answers.

Visiting someone in Denver Sheriff Department custody

The Denver Sheriff Department receives visitors on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, though what is available depends entirely on which facility holds the person.

Two things about that schedule are worth knowing before you drive. Published hours are when the visiting room is open, not when you can arrive — processing closes well before the room does, and arriving inside the last hour often means being turned away. And a published schedule is suspended more often than it is changed: lockdowns, staffing shortages, and medical isolation all cancel visiting at short notice, usually without the website being updated.

The two facilities work differently. The Downtown Detention Center offers video visits only, up to 30 minutes and no more than one visit per week. The County Jail on East Smith Road offers both video and in-person visits, up to two on-site visits per week plus one remote visit per day, again 30 minutes each. In-person visiting happens only at the County Jail, on Fridays and Saturdays at noon, 1:00, 2:00 and 3:00 p.m., and requires an In-Person Eligibility Form to be completed first. On-site video slots at the County Jail run Friday to Sunday at noon, 1:00, 6:00, 7:00 and 8:00 p.m. All visits are booked through a Securus account. Arrive 15 minutes before your slot to check in, and bring a current valid photo ID — a US driver licence, state ID, passport, military ID or consulate ID. The dress code is enforced: no bare feet, no see-through or revealing clothing, no visible undergarments, no hats in the visitor area except on religious grounds, sleeves required, and nothing resembling what people in custody wear. The department’s visit line is (720) 913-3791, Tuesday to Friday from 9:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m., and Securus customer care is (877) 578-3658.

Call the institution the morning you travel and ask specifically whether visiting is running on your family member's yard or unit — not whether the prison is open. Those are different questions, and the second one gets a misleadingly reassuring answer.

How to find someone in this department's custody

The department's official search tool is the Denver Sheriff Department's Inmate Lookup, at www.denvergov.org/Public-Safety/Sheriff-Department/Inmate-Lookup. The department also publishes a separate Jail Visits page covering visiting rules for both facilities.

If the search does not find the person you are looking for, the department's Identification Unit can be reached on (720) 913-1311, the city's general 311 line, which can route a non-urgent query to the right unit. A date of birth is required if the name is a common one — having it ready, along with any spelling variations, is usually the difference between a useful call and being told there is no record.

Avoiding scams and your first steps

Third-party sites sometimes claim to offer inmate locate services, cheaper phone calls, or expedited deposits for a fee. The Denver Sheriff Department's inmate search, Denver Health's official channels for medical questions (with appropriate patient consent), and DSD's contracted deposit and phone vendors are the authoritative and only fully reliable channels. If you have been told your loved one is at the Denver Correctional Care Medical Facility, focus first on the essentials: confirm the specific custody placement (Correctional Care Medical Facility vs. Denver County Jail vs. Downtown Detention Center) through the DSD inmate search, contact DSD at (303) 436-6000 for specific current procedures for the medical facility (visitation, mail, deposit), understand that medical care is being provided by Denver Health rather than by jail staff directly, and coordinate with the treating team if your loved one has consented to family involvement in his care. Look up the case number on the Colorado Judicial Branch site and, if bond is set, contact a licensed Colorado bail bondsman.

Downtown Detention Center and Denver County Jail as sister facilities

If your loved one has been at the Correctional Care Medical Facility for a period of medical care and is stabilizing or completing treatment, he will typically be transferred back to either the Downtown Detention Center (for continued pretrial holding) or the Denver County Jail on Smith Road (for continued sentenced-time serving or higher-classification housing). That transfer will change the specific facility address, visitation procedures, and mail routing, so families should plan for a re-check of family-facing procedures when the transfer occurs. The DSD inmate search will reflect the new placement, and the specific facility's rules apply from that point forward.

Denver Sheriff Department's three-facility structure at a glance

To help families keep the Denver custody geography straight, the Denver Sheriff Department operates three main facilities: the Downtown Detention Center at 490 W Colfax Avenue (intake and shorter-term pretrial holding downtown), the Denver County Jail on Smith Road (the larger main sentenced and pretrial facility), and the Correctional Care Medical Facility at 777 Bannock Street (the specialized medical facility co-located with Denver Health). Each has distinct visitation and mail procedures, though all three share the DSD-wide inmate ID system and deposit and phone vendors. Confirm which specific facility your loved one is at through the DSD inmate search before mailing or scheduling a visit.

Denver Health's Correctional Care program

Denver Health's Correctional Care program is one of the more integrated jail-health arrangements in the country, with Denver Health nurses and clinicians providing on-site care across all three DSD facilities. That integration means clinical continuity is stronger than at jail systems that use rotating outside providers or fragmented contracts, and it means Denver Health's public safety-net mission extends directly into the custody population. Understanding this structure helps families interpret care decisions and coordinate with the treating team when family involvement is appropriate.