BOULDER, Colo. -- A man was arrested for allegedly trying to steal a backpack -- his 177th arrest and just another entry on a 17-page rap sheet, police say.

Jeffrey Pittman, 47 (pictured, left), was arrested again Monday, his first full day out of jail after winning early release from the Boulder County Jail where he was serving a two-year sentence for a drunken-driving conviction.

He is now being held again on suspicion of attempted robbery.

He was arrested last week after allegedly stealing a woman's bags while she was sitting in the same place as last week's alleged victim -- on the Boulder County Courthouse lawn along the Pearl Street Mall.

Pittman has a 20-year criminal history in Boulder and Longmont, 7NEWS reported. His convictions range from indecent exposure and assault to theft and drunken driving.

Judge Roxanne Bailin, who decides which inmates to release early because of jail crowding, said inmates' previous records don't figure into her decision, but said she may reconsider that.

"I'm thinking about it," Bailin said. "But it seems to me that I should be considering what people are in for at that particular time."

Bailin said jail overcrowding has forced her to grant early release to 199 inmates so far this year.

"It's getting to be that I have to release people every week," she said. "And it's not something that I want to do at all."

Twenty inmates are being housed in other counties, at a daily cost of $45 each. The Sheriff's Office estimated the monthly bill for eight inmates relocated to the Washington County Jail at $27,000.

Bailin said the only solution is for voters to approve a November referendum for a $2.1 million jail expansion. She said Boulder County, which has the lowest per-capita inmate population on the Front Range, has exhausted alternative sentencing possibilities.