Mission Statement
The Laramie County Sheriff’s Department Programs Section strives to make our community safer by offering a broad array of relevant programs and services which provide those we serve with opportunities for positive change.
Vision Statement
Setting the standards for excellence as an innovative component of the Laramie County Sheriff’s Department focusing on improving the quality of life for those we serve.
Goal
The goal of the facility is to provide programs that address inmate educational needs, the utilization of leisure time, and to assist their successful transition back into the community, into their families and work places as productive citizens, in an effort to reduce recidivism.
The need for programs within institutions has increased; it is more and more accepted that simply locking people up is not changing what leads them on the path to jail or prison. The current opinion is to provide a variety of social, religious and self-help education to inmates to help themselves, if they so desire.
Inmate Programs history in Laramie County
In the mid 1980’s two deputies started a small library/games service for the inmates in the County / City jail being operated by the Sheriff’s Office. In that timeframe Sheriff Rudy Restivo founded the Laramie County Sheriff’s Office Chaplains Corps with nine members of the local clergy. The Chaplains provided support for the deputies and community by assisting in ride-alongs and during family disturbances. This service grew and when the new facility opened in 1989, Deputy Fabian expanded the Programs function to include a church program for the inmates led by local clergy.
During the 1990’s the Inmate Programs Section experienced several Programs Directors, who all implemented more programs; to include Chaplains Church, several Bible Studies and some Self-Help groups.
At that time Inmate Programs Director G. Johnson and Chaplain Clinton Lewis founded Bethel Outreach Ministries, the first Not-for-Profit organization in Cheyenne to aid released inmates in the re-entry process.
The Inmate Programs Section at the Laramie County Jail kept growing and improving for the next two decades with many more programs and a volunteer group that sometimes exceeds seventy (70) approved volunteers for a large variety of programming.
Inmate Programs
The various programs are classified as either religious or self-help programs. Of those we offer open and closed programs. Most programs are offered for both, male and female groups.
Closed Programs are self-help programs, sometimes with some religious input. With closed programs we keep track of attendance and if all group requirements are met, the facilitator hands out a certificate of completion to each graduating inmate.
Closed programs are provided with the ability of the facilitator and may not be available every month:
Fresh Start Journaling, with a variety of different journals to discuss/work through.
All About Change, developed by one of our chaplains to see and promote change in self and others.
You have the Power, facilitated by DFS/Safe house staff to inform victims of Domestic Violence.
Open Programs are either self-help or religious programs, where inmates sign up on a weekly basis after their classification process is completed.
The longest running open groups are the AA (Alcoholics Anonymous) and NA groups (Narcotics Anonymous)
Groups. Those volunteer facilitators come from the community and are actively involved with those groups in the various meetings they offer throughout town.
With the help of a specifically trained part time employee we are able to provide cognitive corrective thinking groups with the Thruthought Program principles. Those groups are Relapse Prevention, Anger Management and sometimes Charting A New Course. Every inmate who participates in five groups will receive a certificate of attendance also.
We also offer a wide variety of Bible Studies and Church Services led by different volunteers from different church backgrounds.
Laramie County Detention Center is proud to be an official testing site of the HISET (formerly GED) education through our local Community College (LCCC). They provide a teacher for classes and staff for the official testing. We do not provide any college level education.
We also offer a Quilting Class to a select few inmates. They learn how to operate a sewing machine and the basics of quilting from two experienced quilters who come in weekly to teach.
All offered programs are voluntarily attended by the inmates, separated by gender. All juveniles (18 years and under) are held at JSC, the Laramie County Juvenile Services Center.
UPDATE 2020-2022
Due to COVID-19 all programs were suspended to limit outside contacts coming into the jail.
We have resumed some programs via Zoom at the jail and are offering those groups for men and women as the current situation allows according to CDC and City County Health guidelines and Safety and Security needs at the jail. They are: GED/HiSEC (instruction & testing), Anger Management, Relapse Prevention, Church, and NA.
For any more information please contact the Programs office directly.
Our volunteers come from all kinds of different backgrounds to provide this service to our community and inmates. It is because of them, the volunteers that we can afford to provide this variety of programs to educate and improve the lives of the inmates. Volunteer opportunities range from several times per week to once monthly, depending on how much time the volunteer is able to spend at our facility. If you are interested, please contact the Inmate Programs Coordinators at 633-4753 or 633-4785 or through email at programs@laramiecounty.com.
For any person interested, we have our application on line, where you can access it through this link. The application requires a notary, which we can do for free when you bring the filled out application in to the Sheriff’s Department at 1910 Pioneer Ave, Cheyenne WY 82001
Thank you for your interest,
The Inmate Programs Team
Click here to download a copy of the Welcome Volunteer Handbook
