Arrests of Unhoused People Driving Albuquerque Jail Bookings
by Michael Thompson
The number of unhoused people in Albuquerque doubled between 2022 and 2025. During that same period, the number of unhoused people jailed by the city more than tripled, according to a report by ProPublica.
The Bernalillo County Jail, which marks those whom do not have permanent housing as transient on intake, saw nearly 12,000 transient bookings last year. That is a remarkable number as Albuquerque’s estimated unhoused population was around 2,960. There were days where the jail’s transient bookings exceeded the capacity of the city’s largest shelter.
In months prior to ProPublica’s release of the March 2026 report, nearly half the county jail’s bookings (49%) were listed as transient. And the number may actually be a significant understatement, as unhoused detainees may list family, friends or even shelters as permanent addresses, skewing the numbers.
Criminalizing homelessness is not an effective way of addressing the problem, neither is it cost effective. ProPublica cites costs of incarceration in Bernalillo County as $169 per day at a minimum. For jailed persons needing serious medical care, the cost rises to $250 per day and about $450 per day if they have serious mental health needs. In contrast, a person staying at the city’s year-round emergency shelter costs around $44 per night.
The United States Supreme Court ruled in 2024 that cities could enforce bans on camping. See: City of Grants Pass v. Johnson, 603 U.S. 520, 144 S.Ct. 2202 (2024). The majority argued in the decision that the laws banning camping were not the same as banning homelessness, in the same way banning public drunkenness was not the same as banning an addiction to alcohol. That the homeless in Grants Pass, Oregon were being offered unacceptable conditions like non-smoking facilities and mandatory religious services was immaterial.
More than 150 municipalities across the country have, since the Grants Pass decision, either passed new laws or begun engaging in harsher enforcement of existing laws. That is an approach endorsed by President Donald Trump (R), who has called for federal grants to be prioritized to cities like Albuquerque that ban urban camping and loitering. While not criminalizing homelessness directly, Albuquerque has increasingly criminalized acting homeless, with nearly six times the number of citations for obstructing the sidewalks and unlawful camping and another 3,000 trespassing charges last year. Their rate of incarceration exceeds that of similarly sized San Francisco and Pasco County, Florida.
The citations are themselves problematic. An unhoused person given a citation may not have a cellphone or a mailing address where they can receive court updates, leading them on a predictable path to jail. Much like in Grants Pass, the choice in Albuquerque is often a shelter bed in a former county jail or nothing at all. Staying in a shelter can often led to its own traumas, including being victims of theft. Likewise, they may be forcibly separated from a companion or required to give up a pet. Meanwhile, city workers have violated court orders and city policy by routinely throwing away the possessions of those living within the encampments.
Tim Keller, the third-term mayor of Albuquerque, during last year’s reelection campaign, criticized his challenger, former County Sheriff Darren White, for suggesting the city should get tougher on the homeless. He argued, “You simply cannot arrest your way out of this problem whether you want to or not.”
Nevertheless, the city’s reliance on citations just delays the process and increases costs. ProPublica points out that the majority of cases are dismissed once they are adjudicated in the courts, but if the accused misses the date, the result is a bench warrant and arrest. Accordingly, out of 100 randomly chosen 2025 cases, 67 had missed their court dates. The tripling of arrests in Albuquerque “is primarily driven by the cascading effects of repeatedly citing people who are experiencing homelessness,” ProPublica concluded.
Under Keller, the city has spent $100 million to expand a shelter and treatment program, a proactive effort they say has helped 1,000 people get off the street. A church has also opened an informal space for up to ten people to sleep outside without harassment. Regardless, the problem still far exceeds shelter capacity.
Source: ProPublica
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