Soft-on-crime state Sen. Pete Lee gets low marks in our book for his failure to grasp that incarceration is essential to public safety. His repeated attempts at the legislature to coddle criminals seem to center on keeping them out of jail.

The Colorado Springs Democrat, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee at the legislature, doesn’t score much higher when it comes to keeping up on the latest news. Had Lee bothered to read a compelling investigative report by The Gazette last month, he might not have been so quick to shoot down a proposal the other day requiring cash bail for criminal suspects who pose a serious threat to the community.

The Gazette report – an extensive review of records by our investigative team – found that of the 92 homicides resulting in an arrest in Denver from January 2020 through last Nov. 20, at least 42 of the suspects had been on parole, in a halfway house, on probation, out on bail or had fled supervision and were at large. Police say the number of all such cases in 2021 alone jumped 32 percent over 2020.

Those homicides included 11 suspects who were out on bail on previous charges or had skipped out on their bail. Two of those had been released from jail on a personal recognizance bond – a get-out-of-jail-free pass granted at the discretion of prosecutors and courts. And all of that was just in Denver.

Lee and the rest of the Democratic majority on the Judiciary Committee seemed blithely oblivious to those grim realities last week. They killed a Republican bill that would have set a mandatory minimum bond of $1,000 for the pre-trial release of those accused of a violent crime as well as for suspects under certain other circumstances.

“The entire premise of your bill is flawed and fallacious,” Lee insisted to the bill’s sponsor, Sen. Rob Woodward, R-Loveland before voting to scuttle the proposal. “It may feel good, it may sound good, but it’s not based on data.”

Lee ought to tell that to the families of the 11 people who died in Denver, allegedly at the hands of suspects out on bail at the time. While there’s no guarantee Woodward’s bill would have kept the alleged perpetrators off the streets in those cases, a minimum-$1,000 bond at least would have raised the bar. Certainly, for the suspects who had been released on recognizance bonds.

A leading voice in the “justice reform” fringe of Senate Democrats, Lee notoriously introduced a couple of bills last year to radically reduce arrests as well as the use of cash bail. He appears to believe in an infinite number of second chances. Fortunately, enough of the legislature didn’t share that inclination, and the bills fizzled.

Lee nevertheless can obstruct real, needed reforms, like Woodward’s. Woodward referred to his bill as a “preventive measure” and, as reported last week by The Gazette, forewarned: “In the very near future, a violent criminal will be released back on the streets on a (personal recognizance) bond, and someone will be seriously injured, killed or otherwise harmed.”

A chilling thought.

Colorado Springs Gazette editorial board