Colorado’s soaring crime rate has roots in Colorado Springs. State Sen. Pete Lee’s website, PeteLeeColorado.com, makes clear his highest priorities. First among his “key issues” one finds “Justice Reform.” His second key issue is “Restorative Justice.” That’s two-thirds of his agenda devoted to deprioritizing penalties for crimes. The third priority of Lee, D-Colorado Springs, is a nebulous pledge of “Supporting Coloradans.”

Lee has done a great job achieving his top two goals, and we are seeing the results in Colorado’s soaring rates of homicides and other violent crimes. For detailed first-hand insight, read a Q&A in today’s Gazette with Denver Police Chief Paul Pazen. He describes working on the front lines of a system so broken by policies traced to Lee and other justice reformers that arresting criminals sounds like a fool’s errand of futility.

For a detailed look at the numbers of offenders released on parole, probation, into halfway houses and with phony “personal reconnaissance” no-cash bonds, read a riveting report by The Denver Gazette’s investigative team. An exhaustive review of records finds that of 92 homicides resulting in arrests in Denver from January 2020 through Nov. 20, 2021, at least 42 of the suspects were on parole, in a halfway house, on probation, out on bail or had fled supervision when they reportedly killed. Police say the number of such cases in 2021 alone jumped 32% over 2020.

The report explains what sounds like a significant part of the problem.

“A new law enacted three years ago, SB2019-143, restricted the ability for parole officers to revoke parolees back to prison,” the report states.

“That law … placed a broad swath of what are termed technical violations as no longer eligible for revocation back to prison and specified that revocation should be reserved primarily for parolees that commit new crimes.

“Violating the terms of parole supervision by skipping drug tests, engaging in drug use and a host of other violations, no longer could result in revocations …”

Lee led the charge for SB 143. State Rep. Tony Exum, D-Colorado Springs, supported it and is running for the state Senate to replace Lee – who was carved out of District 11 by statewide redistricting.

After spearheading the set-’em-free law, Lee tried to go further with a bill last year to forbid the arrests of suspects in class 4, 5, and 6 felonies and class 3 or 4 drug felonies. This means Lee wants the system to give tickets to suspects in felonies – including distribution of large amounts of highly lethal fentanyl and other deadly drugs. He wants hard-core felony suspects treated as if they were stopped for speeding.

In today’s Perspective, Pazen explains a fentanyl crisis causing more deaths than COVID. It began after Lee successfully led a 2019 bill to reduce the felony crimes of possessing schedule 1 or 2 controlled substances to misdemeanors. Exum voted for the bill.

The Gazette’s investigation detailed a host of factors law enforcement blames for the rise in violent crime: lax prosecution; lenient judges; no-cash bail bonds; and an understaffed and ill-prepared corps of parole and probation officers. Most fundamentally, the article detailed recent new policies, most of which were passed as two of Lee’s three highest priorities.

Homicides detailed in the report include 11 suspects who were out on bail on previous charges or had jumped bail. Two of those had been released from jail on personal recognizance bonds – get-out-of-jail-free passes granted at the discretion of prosecutors and courts. Nine were on parole. Nine others were on probation through Denver District Court. In one case, a suspect charged with homicide resided in a halfway house.

Taken as a whole, one easily concludes the suspects were everywhere but in jail, despite arrests for murder.

“The lack of consequences and accountability for individuals who are committing crimes, these repeat and violent offenders, is why we are seeing these spikes,” Pazen explains in The Gazette’s Q&A.

A recent, groundbreaking study on the crime wave by two prominent former district attorneys for Colorado’s Common Sense Institute found the number of convicts behind bars at Colorado prisons had dropped an astounding 23% from 2008 to this year – while the number of crimes per year exploded by 47%.

We assume Lee and his fellow soft-on-crime advocates never intended these deadly outcomes. But the numbers don’t lie. These suspects could not have killed had they been behind bars or under the watch provided by our traditional cash bail system. Their victims would likely remain alive.

It’s time to stop electing politicians who deprioritize the hardship of crime, which disproportionately affects the poor and minorities. Meanwhile, the Legislature must reform a host of reform bills, or the murders and overdoses will continue to rise.

Colorado Springs Gazette editorial board