Pitkin County Sheriff Michael Buglione stands in front of an Earl Biss original at a Dec. 17 tour of the jail. He said the late Biss, a longtime Aspen artist and frequent resident of the jail, painted the landscape on the concrete jail walls so that the county commissioners could not sell and profit from his art.
If the jail is relocated, the painting will be carved out of the wall and displayed at the new facility. With new state standards for county jails coming in summer 2026, the Pitkin County Sheriff’s Office is readying new proposals for a major jail overhaul. The jail, first built in 1984, has beds for 12 male inmates and two female inmates — plus one holding cell and an observation cell.
Dan Fellin, detentions division chief for the sheriff’s office, said the facility does not meet the community’s needs and will soon be out of compliance with state standards. “There are nights where we have those cells full with arrests over the night — granted, most of them leave in a relatively quick fashion, but we don’t have the ability to separate males from females if we have more than two or three arrests,” Fellin said. “We have that ability with housing, but we lose beds that we could be using for other things.
We don't have the space that we would like to have.” Average population has hovered around 15-18 people since reopening beds out of use since the COVID-19 pandemic, Fellin said, maxing out capacity. The jail cannot accommodate sight and sound separat.