In response to a March 25 executive order from Gov. Jared Polis, the Colorado Department of Corrections has temporarily halted intakes from county jails and will open additional bed spaces at the recently upgraded Centennial Correctional Facility South in Canon City. 

CDOC’s executive director, Dean Williams, said that the order “allows us to pursue potential options to manage our prison population without jeopardizing safety during this crisis.”

The state will also use the Centennial facility for intake of male prisoners in order to isolate those who test positive for COVID-19 symptoms. If they do not display symptoms, inmates will then finish their intake at the Denver Reception and Diagnostic Center. The department said that the procedural change is to preserve the health of those inmates at the Denver location with medical conditions.

In cases of overcrowding or public safety concerns in county jails, there will be an exception to the moratorium on prisoner transfers. The department will craft additional rules allowed under the order, potentially to give greater flexibility to place inmates on parole or remove caps for earned time.

Separately on Thursday, CDOC announced that an employee, a parole officer in the Sterling area, tested positive for COVID-19. The individual did not work inside a prison, and the department is performing contact tracing to determine if others may have been infected. CDOC said that to date, no inmates have tested positive.