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.


Wednesday, September 10, 2008

DNC Protestors To Sue Police

Members of the Re-create 68 Alliance and other protesters said they intend to file civil rights lawsuits against Denver police for allegedly violating their rights at demonstrations during the Democratic National Convention.

Denver lawyer David Lane said his firm will represent the protesters for free and will file lawsuits after their criminal cases are resolved.

"We have a zero-tolerance policy for constitutional violations," Lane said. "The city of Denver has a history of ignoring constitutional rights violations."

Carlo Garcia, 22, a University of Colorado student, said he was holding a banner promoting separation of church and state when police body-slammed him and shoved his face in the dirt.

"I was there protesting a war and injustices in the United States," he said. "You could tell a militarized police state was there to control a populace."

He said he was arrested for interference. Alex Bryan said he was ticketed for "pedestrian use of sidewalk" but doesn't know why that is a crime.


Rocky Mountain News

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I commend David Lane for recognizing that Colorado, and specifically the city of Denver, ignores peoples constitutional rights. It appears Colorado needs new leadership in most all area's of its government, starting with the criminal justice and the Colorado Department of Corrections.
Regulation boards that hand out reprimands instead of real penaltys out to be abolished. Some one should have the common sense to call a grand jury, appoint a special prosecutor to investigate and penalize wrong doer's in government.Also the Denver Post, the TV stations need to openly report all the cases going on against the Department of corrections and the Denver police department so the public knows how corrupt the system is and why they have so many people in prison who cant seem to ever get out?? DJW

Anonymous said...

The recreate68 is an extremely small group of people. They want all the public attention that they can get. I was there for the first day of the protests in Civic Center and there were flocks of news media grouped around the maybe 3-4 people who talked on for hours and hours. These are trouble makers who have no desire to make a positive change, just complain.

However, having said that, we, as a people, lost most of our constitutional rights to "public safety".
The other side of this issue is that there are proven studies that show that mandatory sentences, long incarcerations, discrimination in housing and employment, all lead to recidivism and more crimes, not "correction".mpc