Sheriff's office logged 1,161 calls and 144 jail bookings in October
The monthly report the sheriff files with county commissioners shows the jail held an average of about 65 people a day and cost $292,584 to run for the month. Traffic stops were the single most common call.
The Montezuma County Sheriff’s Office handled 1,161 calls for service in October and booked 144 people into the county jail, according to the monthly report Sheriff Steve Nowlin files with the county commissioners, which the county posted on Tuesday afternoon.
Graphic: Cortez Current. Source: Montezuma County Sheriff’s Office monthly report, October 2026
The report is a set of tables rather than a narrative, and it is the fullest regular public account of what the office and the jail actually do in a month. The Current has not previously covered it.
The jail
The jail booked 144 people in October and released 133. Of the bookings, 110 were on state charges — 68 men and 42 women — and 32 were municipal prisoners, the category the report uses for the City of Cortez, made up of 28 men and four women. Two more were booked under a heading the report abbreviates DCSO and does not spell out. Neither Mancos nor the Town of Dolores booked anyone into the jail in October, and there were no courtesy holds.
Counted a different way, the jail recorded 2,000 prisoner-days over the month’s 31 days — an average of about 65 people in custody on any given day. The daily count ran from a low of 58 to a high of 74 on October 27. The year-to-date figures are 1,165 people confined by all departments and 15,191 prisoner-days.
Busiest days for bookings were October 19, with 10, and October 30, with nine. Two days, October 4 and October 24, recorded no bookings at all.
What it cost
The report prices the jail at a flat $146 per prisoner per day. On that basis October’s total came to $292,584.
Most of that is not billed to anyone: $278,276 covers the 1,906 prisoner-days the report classes as state or non-reimbursed. The City of Cortez is billed for 91 prisoner-days, or $13,286, covering 29 inmates. Four Department of Corrections holds, totaling four days, came to $584, and the DCSO category’s three days came to $438.
Against that, the office paid $12,622.52 in fees into the county’s general fund for the month. The largest pieces were $5,426.96 in prisoner maintenance, $1,941.65 owed to the county by inmates, $1,704.50 in civil process fees, $1,007.50 in security fees for the Montezuma County Fair, $780 in booking fees and $409.09 in other inmate receivables. Concealed weapons permits brought in $305 and fingerprints $140. With a $12,956.80 court security cash fund grant, the month’s total came to $25,579.32.
Transport
The office’s year-to-date transport figures, which cover moving prisoners and others to jails, hospitals and placements elsewhere, show 94 adults and nine juveniles transported so far in 2026, over 1,565 hours and 44,677 miles. The office has asked for $16,030.87 in transport restitution. Per diem and hotel costs for deputies on those trips total $2,721.24 — $1,390.78 in per diem and $1,330.46 in hotels.
A separate local line shows 52 staff involved in 104 local transports and jail assists, totaling 54.6 hours.
What deputies were called to
The dispatch table breaks October’s 1,161 calls into about 135 categories. The ten most common were:
- Traffic stop — 119
- Phone call — 95
- VIN inspection — 76
- Attempt to serve civil process — 63
- Security check — 56
- Follow-up — 47
- Business check — 43
- Traffic accident — 33
- Welfare check — 31
- Livestock at large — 27
Further down the list: 20 traffic problems, 17 warrant services, 17 dog-running-at-large calls, 16 suspicious vehicles, 16 suspicious activity calls, 15 wildlife calls, 14 thefts, 14 prisoner transports, 14 domestic violence calls, 13 disturbances and 13 REDDI reports, the state’s report-every-drunk-driver-immediately line. The table also logs seven traffic accidents involving a hit and run, five with injuries, five stolen vehicles, four trespass calls and two unattended deaths.
The report does not describe any individual case, and the figures here are counts of calls, not of crimes or charges.
About this story
The report runs to 24 pages. Several of its sections are billing records that list people held in the jail by name, and the Current does not republish those: an arrest or a jail booking is an accusation, not a conviction. The figures above are the report’s own totals, each of which has been checked against a second table in the same document.
The October report is on the county’s website, posted November 3, with the full PDF at County Sheriff Report – October 2026.