A dramatic decrease in the number of people in prison being granted parole and a slew of recent laws that lengthen sentences is causing Colorado’s adult prison population to balloon, experts and advocates say, even as crime in the state has fallen.
It’s gotten so bad that Gov. Jared Polis is failing to make good, possibly even backtracking, on a key campaign promise to end Colorado’s contracts with private prison companies and reinvest those dollars in alternatives to incarceration.
Polis is now proposing expanding the state’s correctional system by reopening at least one, but maybe two, prisons. Without another prison, Polis’ office said, the Department of Corrections will have to house more than 100 people on sled beds — plastic floor cots — in a gym.
And so at a time when Colorado lawmakers are cutting social services, like health care for people with low incomes, to manage a $1.5 billion budget gap, they’re also considering how to find money for another prison, an outcome no one seems happy about.
“Nobody wants to fund prison beds,” Rep. Kyle Brown, D-Louisville, a member of the Joint Budget Committee, said at a caucus meeting last week.
So how did we get here?
To read the entire article, visit The Colorado Sun.
