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, May 15, 2008

Colorado Prisoners Returning Home

The Colorado Department of Corrections is returning 120 prisoners who have been at an Oklahoma prison to Colorado prisons today, authorities say.

Many of the inmates had been housed at a private prison in Sayre, Okla., since January 2007 because of a shortage of bed space at Colorado prisons, said Ari Zavaras, executive director of the DOC.

The prisoners will be taken mostly to two private prisons run by Corrections Corporation of America, which also runs the Oklahoma prison.

"There are two ways to solve the issue of the prison-bed shortage: reduce demand and increase capacity," Zavaras said.

Corrections Corp. recently built new facilities to hold a total of 1,440 more prisoners at Kit Carson Correctional Facility in Burlington and Bent County Correctional Facility.

"The state has enacted a plan for reducing recidivism and the demand for bed space, but we are also planning for future increases in bed capacity," Zavaras said.

The 360 Colorado inmates who remain in Oklahoma will be returned to Colorado within four weeks, he said.

Zavaras said the decision to send prisoners out of state was made as a last resort.

"The department and state lawmakers realize the transfer impacted families across the state — families who are a key to reconciliation, which reduces the likelihood the offender will reoffend when returned to the community," he said.

A new 948-bed state prison under construction in Cañon City is scheduled to open in early 2010.


The Denver Post

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

As usual, the news media is taking the DOC as gospel. They have had 1,000 empty beds in Colorado for years and wanted to make a political point. It was NOT a last resort. When do you know DOC is lying? When they open their mouths.
DOC obviously has not addressed problem of putting people back into prison for "technical" violations, such as speaking to antoher person who turns out to be a parolee. DOC needs to get a federal law that will brand all offenders, as they intend, with a big "F" on their foreheads (remember Salem, MA?) so they can keep the prison industrial complex going in Colorado and keep 6500 state and private for profit employees making money. MPC

Anonymous said...

MPC speaks words of wisdom. Every bit of it true. It is now May 16, year 2008. Did CDOC mean May 16, 2009? Why haven't we heard these first 120 men returned yesterday, May 15, as spoken? Those of us affected by the improprieties and deceptions have learned not to trust.

Anonymous said...

To the owner of this blog, how far youve come?

Anonymous said...

Ive read this topic for some blogs. But I think this is more informative.

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