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.


Thursday, August 30, 2007

CSP II Breaks Ground

No one to build it yet- I do wonder at the fact that they can't get any current legislators to show up to this event. Just former ones.

CANON CITY - The Colorado Department of Corrections will break ground Friday for the long-awaited high-security correctional facility planned at the East Canon Prison Complex.

The event is open to everyone and is set for 11 a.m. at the East Canon Prison Complex, U.S. 50 and Evans Boulevard. Former Colorado House Speaker Lola Spradley and former state Sen. Norma Anderson, both Republicans, are scheduled to be guest speakers along with DOC Executive Director Ari Zavaras and other corrections officials.

The new prison, dubbed Colorado State Penitentiary II, will be built just west of Centennial Correctional Facility and will consist of 948 administrative segregation beds, the highest security available in the Colorado prison system.

CSPII was funded in 2003 through certificates of participation, but litigation called into question the suitability of using the certificates. The courts found it was a legal means to fund the project, but because it was slowed three years by the lawsuit, cost to build the prison has gone up to $145 million from an estimated $101 million.

Pueblo Chieftain

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

This project must be stopped. Unfortunately, the DOC does not allow anyone to demonstrate on public property!! The solution is to physically block the entrance to the east canon city complex with non-violent demonstrators, similar to what was done to stop segregation and show that this state does not need this new prison! If they released one third of their "prisoners" to needed drug rehabilitation, then there is no need for this expensive new prison. The types of facilities needed are NOT supermax, but more less expensive facilities to treat drug addiction. The DOC and the justice system in this state regularly misclassifies inmates in order to keep CSP full. Why build another one when it IS NOT NEEDED?

Anonymous said...

This is a Super Max. Prison, drug users/addicts are not kept there...
Maybe you should put the pipe down...