Violence within the Denver jail system could be curtailed if inmates spent less time in temporary holding areas and sheriff’s deputies had more detailed information about the jail population, a recent review found.

The review – ordered by Denver City Auditor Timothy O’Brien and conducted by private consulting firm BKD, LLP, Enterprise Risk Services – found the Denver Sheriff’s Department’s practices for processing new inmates needs improvement. Most notably, newcomers to the Denver jail system are often left in open holding areas for long periods of time, with “little physical protection.”

“There would be fewer incidents and less need to use force if inmates were more efficiently moved out of general population areas into appropriate housing assignments,” O’Brien said in a statement.

BKD reviewed the sheriff department’s implementation of recommendations issued in a seperate 2015 review by consulting firm Hillard Heintze. That 2015 review found deep excessive force and mismanagement problems and the consultant issued 277 recommendations.

BKD specifically examined how well the department has done with 27 recommendations related to intake and classification process. In its review of those 2015 recommendations, BKD found seven of the recommendations complete, eight mostly complete, nine partially complete and three not complete.

In its review, BKD determined the Denver jail system process of intake isn’t efficient and leaves both inmates and sheriff deputies vulnerable.

“According to the assessment, before the interview to decide where an inmate should be housed, offenders are separated into men and women and left in general holdings areas known as ‘the pit’ on the first floor of the Van Cise-Simonet Detention Center on West Colfax Avenue in Denver,” the auditor’s office said in a statement. “In these areas, there is little physical protection for the offenders or staff if an offender’s behavior is erratic.”

Use-of-force incidents during processing have remained rather consistent for the sheriff department, with an average of 260 incidents annually from 2014 to 2016, the auditor’s office said. However, that could be reduced if inmates were processed faster.

BKD also noted, during intake, sheriff deputies use information like inmate interviews, recommendations calculated by a computer algorithm and professional judgement to assign a security level and proper housing assignment for newcomers.

But deputies do not receive formal training, but rather professional judgement is garnered through on-the-job experience. The department could benefit from a standardized training program, BKD said. One specific recommendation calls for training on in-depth interviews on topics such as mental health treatment, gang affiliation and prior arrests. Since the 2015 consultant review, the department has added a gang affiliation question to the interview process to ensure gang members aren’t housed together.

BKD also noted that historical information in the jail’s management system is often undetailed and the system “overwrites old information with new information, making the tracking and analysis of historical records inefficient or impossible,” the auditor’s office said.

“Strong training and analytics can help the jails identify trends and patterns,” O’Brien said in a statement. “Through this kind of analysis, the jails could work to improve their overall performance and safety.”