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.


Friday, January 30, 2009

Corrections and Straining Budgets

Drug War Chronicle

If there are any silver linings in the current economic, fiscal, and budgetary disaster that afflicts the US, one of them could be that the budget crunch at statehouses around the country means that even formerly sacrosanct programs are on the chopping block. With drug offenders filling approximately 20-25% of prison cells in any given state, prison budgets are now under intense scrutiny, creating opportunities to advance sentencing, prison, and drug law reform in one fell swoop.

Nationwide, corrections spending ranks fourth in eating up state budget dollars, trailing only health care, education, and transportation. According to the National Association of State Budget Officers, five states -- Connecticut, Delaware, Michigan, Oregon and Vermont -- spend more on prisons they than do on schools.

The US currently spends about $68 billion a year on corrections, mostly at the state level. Even at a time when people are talking about trillion dollar bail-outs, that's a lot of money. And with states from California to the Carolinas facing severe budget squeezes, even "law and order" legislators and executive branch officials are eyeing their expensive state prison systems in an increasingly desperate search to cut costs.

"If you look at the amount of money spent on corrections in the states, it's an enormous amount," said Lawanda Johnson of the Justice Policy Institute. "If they could reduce prison spending, that would definitely have an impact on their state budgets. Now, a few states are starting to look at their jail and prison populations," she said.

Among them:

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Colorado has an opportune time to clean up the mess created in there department of correction right now.
Do away with parole and release the 8500 or so people your holding who where non violent offenders. The state budget can be met without cutting veterans and seniors homestead exemtions and public education.
I realize that Governor Ritter was the Denver DA. How many of the 8500 is he responsible for locking up?? The budget noose will tighten as the depression deepens, ad some catastrophic weather, along with a lot more foreclosures, job losses, company bankruptcy's hit Colorado. Where will he and his sorry budget director look for money next. Those of us seniors who witnessed the last depression understand. I am a veteran of Korean war as well as a senior on a fixed income. Myself and lots of others are going to be watching the actions of state government and all there agencys very close to see how your spending our tax dollars. djw

Anonymous said...

I completely disagree. Someone who absolutely ruined my life, as well as the lives of several others, is now about to be released after serving less than a year (she was sentenced for 15, and I was accepting of her only serving about half of that). She has previously been convicted for multiple felonies, among them are numerous counts of grand theft and impersonation. So because she did not murder someone, she should be let go after 10 years of preying on innocent people? She is now a professional criminal and by letting her out after only a year, what has she learned from her wrongdoing? A year has not even been long enough to fix the mess she made of 5 lives. While many people are greatly affected by the current ecomony, is it wise to so quickly release someone that ruins the financials lives of others without conscience? I agree that the suggestions on how to cut the budget (really? education? elderly property tax? really?) are completely inadequate, but simply choosing to release any criminal because they have not yet turned their crimes into homicide is an incredible mistake. I can agree that there are some prisoners that should be released at this point (based on time served percentages and original crimes), but at this point saying justice is blind is an understatement. Justice is roadkill with decisions like this. This undermines the entire system set up to help determine the gray areas of law and behavior by responding with a simple black and white 'what you did wasnt including murder, so you get to go free.' Setting the standard that you can commit almost any crime and merely expect to be picked up and immediately released due to budget cuts. Let the rape and pillaging begin!

Anonymous said...

I completely disagree. Someone who absolutely ruined my life, as well as the lives of several others, is now about to be released after serving less than a year (she was sentenced for 15, and I was accepting of her only serving about half of that). She has previously been convicted for multiple felonies, among them are numerous counts of grand theft and impersonation. So because she did not murder someone, she should be let go after 10 years of preying on innocent people? She is now a professional criminal and by letting her out after only a year, what has she learned from her wrongdoing? A year has not even been long enough to fix the mess she made of 5 lives. While many people are greatly affected by the current ecomony, is it wise to so quickly release someone that ruins the financials lives of others without conscience? I agree that the suggestions on how to cut the budget (really? education? elderly property tax? really?) are completely inadequate, but simply choosing to release any criminal because they have not yet turned their crimes into homicide is an incredible mistake. I can agree that there are some prisoners that should be released at this point (based on time served percentages and original crimes), but at this point saying justice is blind is an understatement. Justice is roadkill with decisions like this. This undermines the entire system set up to help determine the gray areas of law and behavior by responding with a simple black and white 'what you did wasnt including murder, so you get to go free.' Setting the standard that you can commit almost any crime and merely expect to be picked up and immediately released due to budget cuts. Let the rape and pillaging begin!

Anonymous said...

The problem is that DOC is ineffective. We as a society continue to believe that punitive works-it does not. It is of no use to sent people away for years and do nothing to change their behavior or provide some services to produce possible change.
Any society (i.e.Colorado) that is willing to pay $30,000 a year to lock up adults in DOC and $70,000 a year for juveniles in the Div. of Youth Corrections but only spends $6,500 a year per pupil in Denver Public Schools is disfunction. The crime rate has gone down but the reporting of crime in the media has increased hundreds of times.
Too many youth in Colorado are high school drop-outs. Too many of our children are failing. However, we continue to think that we can do the same thing in the name of "public safety" and get different results. Locking non-violent offenders up longer and longer without any services is too expensive and STUPID.

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