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, January 22, 2009

Ritter Stops Construction On New DOC Headquarters

Rocky Mountain News

Gov. Bill Ritter has placed on hold construction of a new Department of Corrections headquarters in Colorado Springs, citing the state's budget shortfall.

The new building was to be built near the existing 65,000-square-foot Corrections Department headquarters, making the agency a principal tenant of the proposed Vineyard Commerce Park office complex.

Mortenson Development Inc. of Minneapolis is developing the complex on Janitell Road; company spokesman Mark Alexander did not immediately return an after-hours call seeking comment Thursday.

The state's 30-year, lease-to-own deal on the new 100,000-square-foot building would have been worth about $90 million.

However, Ritter spokesman Evan Dreyer said Thursday that the new headquarters has been "indefinitely halted."

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thats a positive step, now lets see real prison reform. djw

Anonymous said...

Let's see...the state has signed a contract with this development company to spend $90M on a lease purchase. This state government is continuing to put our grandchildren into debt. A lease purchase is just as bad a financing device as the certificates of participation used (illegally because they allocate money on FUTURE revenues) to build a new, supermax prison that will cost 62% more than the original "estimate" by the DOC.
One way to resolve this issue is to downsize the DOC. Let's put the half of the inmates that are mental and drug patients into institutions that can help them, rather than warehouse them. If you then cut half of the employees of the DOC and got rid of the Parole Board, who are worthless anyway, then we could save nearly a $1,000,000,000 (billion) dollars a year and certainly not need a new headquarters (which is a botched project from the very beginning).mpc

Anonymous said...

Maybe Ritter can bring the prisoners from Gitmo to finish the building. They can car pool from Super Max. If the gov feels like it is "safe enough" to house them here in colorado...might as well put them to work on a ritter project.

Anonymous said...

I agree...why do we have a parole board that does nothing but rubber stamp recommendations from state civil employees...?
Saving a Billion Dollars sounds like reason to me...
Where is McDuffy...or whatever her name is from Canyon City? She is always looking to save a penny...

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