Criminal Justice Group Honor Lawmakers

The Spot (Denver Post)

The Colorado Criminal Justice Reform Coalition will honor two former state legislators during its annual fundraiser next Thursday.
In 1999, Sen. Dorothy Rupert, D-Boulder, and Rep. Penfield Tate, D-Denver, sponsored legislation calling for a three-year halt on prison expansion and the creation of a task force to explore effective alternatives to incarceration.
The bill failed but it helped inspire a statewide, grassroots movement for criminal justice reform.
Tate and Rupert will be at the fundraiser to accept the inaugural “Rupert-Tate Game Changer Award.” Tate and Rupert’s vision was “on-point but ahead of their time,” said Christie Donner, CCJRC’s executive director.
The event is scheduled for 5 to 9:30 p.m. Sept. 20 at Mile High Station, 2027 W. Colfax Ave., in Denver. Tickets for the event, which features dinner and silent and live auctions, are $75 per person. Tickets can be purchased online at www.ccjrc.org or by calling 303-825-0122.

Tate and Rupert’s “leadership inspired many of us in the community to come together and continue to push for a re-evaluation of policies driving growth in the prison population, like the failed war on drugs,” she said. “It seems perfectly fitting that CCJRC would circle back to the leaders who inspired our founding and honor all that they helped to achieve.”
Also at the event, Kris Dafni, program director for Turnabout, and Khalil Halim, client supervisor for It Takes a Village, will speak about their experiences as inmates who went on to provide counseling and support for those looking to end the cycle of poverty and crime.
For more information, visit www.ccjrc.org.