Who is the Colorado Criminal Justice Reform Coalition?

Our mission is to reverse the trend of mass incarceration in Colorado. We are a coalition of nearly 7,000 individual members and over 100 faith and community organizations who have united to stop perpetual prison expansion in Colorado through policy and sentence reform.

Our chief areas of interest include drug policy reform, women in prison, racial injustice, the impact of incarceration on children and families, the problems associated with re-entry and stopping the practice of using private prisons in our state.

If you would like to be involved please go to our website and become a member.


Saturday, May 26, 2007

WESTWORD - Casey's Making Moves

We've been following Alan's story of Casey Holden who was recently released from the Colorado State Pen and how he's doing on parole. Here's the latest installment. There's a link to the previous installments imbedded in this article.

When we last checked in with Casey Holden, he was scraping by as a wage slave at a pizza joint in Grand Junction. This was a better life than being locked down in the Colorado state pen, mind you, but a bit short of Holden's dreams of getting an education, getting his own place and making some real dough — the green kind, not the stuff you plaster with tomato sauce and shove in an oven.

But things are looking up.

Holden, 26, has three years of parole to complete after spending most of the last ten years in prison — and he's letting us tag along by occasional blog (previous entries can be found here ) as he navigates the maze of financial, legal, and family issues confronted by parolees trying to make it on the street.

For a healthy young man looking for quick cash — to pay for restitution and classes, drug tests and rent — the oil-and-gas fields of the Western Slope are a powerful lure. But Holden's parole officer has told him he doesn't want him working in that high-paying industry yet, out of concerns over a possible criminal environment among roughnecks and the logistics of making it back to town for random drug tests. This seems highly ironic to Holden; oilfield workers get drug-tested all the time, and he's met plenty of sketchy characters at his low-paying pizza job. But you can't argue with the Man.

Westword

2 comments:

David H. Lukenbill said...

Good post, reentry is hard...took me years.

Great blog, keep up the good work!

David H. Lukenbill
David H. Lukenbill, President
The LampStand Foundation
“It takes a reformed criminal to reform criminals.”
Post Office Box 254794
Sacramento, CA 95865-4794
Phone: 916-486-3856
Email: Dlukenbill@msn.com
Website: www.lampstandfoundation.org

Anonymous said...

I like reading Casey's blog and keeping up with what's going on with him. My husband is currently serving a 2 year parole and while he hasn't run into a lot of problems, it hasn't been easy. One issue was transferring his UA's to a different location, and then having them tell him numerous times that they had not received his paperwork from his parole officer yet. He's missed 2 UA's and lost earned time and we believe it's due to the "bureacracy" as we went down in person the 2 days he forgot to call and his name wasn't on the board. But he was still dinged for it! He will see his PO at the end of the month and hopefully we can convince her that he has been calling/going in when he's supposed to so that he can get his earned time. Otherwise, he will write a letter of complaint to her supervisor.

Casey is lucky though. At least he doesn't owe child support! The county social services refuse to send offenders the paperwork and information needed to have their support reduced while they're incarcerated, so when they are released, they are already in debt for thousands of dollars. My husband is currently in child support debt to the tune of $39,000+++. That is something else that needs to change.