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, August 27, 2010

CSP Opens Wednesday

Pueblo Chieftain

CANON CITY — Some badly needed administrative segregation prison space will open up Wednesday, helping to relieve a backlog of dangerous prisoners and beef up security for the Department of Corrections.

DOC officials on Wednesday dedicated the state's newest $162 million prison. Formerly referred to as Colorado State Penitentiary II, the prison is now officially a part of neighboring Centennial prison at the East Canon Prison Complex.

Although the new prison consists of 948 administrative segregation beds, just one tower, which will house 316 inmates, will be opened. Because of budget constraints, there are no immediate plans to open the other two towers.

"On Sept. 1, we will start getting 15 inmates a day," said Lt. Chris Barr, intelligence supervisor for the prison. “We will be taking 150 inmates off the state-wide administrative-segregation waiting list and another 166 inmates from Colorado State Penitentiary."

The freed-up bed space at Colorado State Penitentiary in Canon City will go to mentally ill prisoners, where eventually all 361 beds will be filled by mentally ill inmates, Barr said.

"It is all about having the right inmate in the right bed with the right programs," said Ari Zavaras, DOC executive director. "These are difficult economic times and we always need to be prudent with the resources we are given.

“We know this was a very difficult decision for the Legislature way back when it was first approved and more recently when they agreed to fund the opening of one tower. They knew the issues we were facing — it is about safety for the inmates and the staff," Zavaras said.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ari,s security is inspecting the nude bodys of the women at DWCF. He needs to transfer those specilists in body security to that facility in canon city, or better, just fire the jerks.djw

Anonymous said...

Pretty funny. Visiting has been cancelled at all facilities this weekend, even parole officers have been called on to help out with this move. I'm pretty sure they are moving people right now and certainly as many as they can. It makes no sense for it to take a month to move people but that's the DOC way.

Anonymous said...

No, it is not needed. It was never needed in the first place. It was funded illegally. The CSP idea of treating mentally ill will not be implemented for "fiscal" reasons. Trying to treat mentally ill prisoners in a prison designed to make people mentally ill by locking them up 24 hours a day is ludicrous.mpc

Anonymous said...

I have gone through nothing but problems having to deal with the Colorado Dept. of Corrections. No other country has solitary confinement because they were smart enough to stop it after doing studies. CSP's program is b.s. Even when you try your hardest to get to population, they still want to keep you locked down for no reason. I sure hope the new director makes some changes.