A “halfway house” is supposed to be just that — a transition that prepares prisoners for a return to society.

It’s not supposed to be an easy means of escape.

Incredibly, it was the latter in Colorado under an outrageous policy that was adopted by the state Department of Corrections and abetted by “justice reform” legislation. Thank goodness, it was halted just last week. As reported by The Gazette over the weekend, the policy barred the state’s parole officers from seeking criminal charges against convicts who escaped from halfway houses. That’s right — even as Colorado’s crime rate skyrocketed, with violent crime as well as property crime soaring in our metro areas as well as our rural reaches.

And it turns out the absurd policy was put on hold only after a Gazette reporter got wind of it and began asking questions — and law enforcement officials, prosecutors and halfway house operators decried the inexplicable leniency toward offenders.

It’s still unclear how long the new rule had been in effect — or how many convicts were able to avoid prosecution after walking away from halfway houses. As The Gazette reported, the escape rate for prisoners at Colorado halfway houses nearly doubled between the state fiscal year ending June 2020 and the following year.

Is it any surprise — considering they faced no consequences?

“This is nothing short of a dereliction of DOC’s duty to keep local communities safe while transitioning offenders back into those same communities,” wrote Jefferson County Sheriff Jeff Shrader in a June 27 letter to Dean Williams, the executive director of the Corrections Department. The Gazette obtained the letter, which also went to Gov. Jared Polis, through a Colorado Open Records Act request.

Weld County District Attorney Michael Rourke told The Gazette he learned about two months ago that the Corrections Department no longer was seeking criminal charges for escapees from halfway house. Rourke and several other law-enforcement officials and halfway house operators expressed frustration with that shift and pointed out that nobody at the Corrections Department had provided them any warning.

A corrections department spokeswoman attempted to deflect some of the blame for the policy misfire by noting that the charge for escaping a halfway house, had parole officers been able to make use of it, is often is a mere misdemeanor anyway for nonviolent offenders.

For that, Colorado’s law-abiding citizens can thank their elected representatives in the legislature. As The Gazette also reported, legislation that passed in 2020 reclassified the charge for halfway house escapes by those serving time for nonviolent crimes down to a misdemeanor. House Bill 20-1019 was sponsored — surprise! — by two of the General Assembly’s most ardent criminal coddlers, Rep. Leslie Herod and Sen. Julie Gonzales, both Denver Democrats.

Colorado’s crime wave is the backwash from soft-on-crime policies ushered in by the Democrats who wield all the levers of power in state government, in both the executive and legislative branches. This latest development is a prime example. Coloradans are now reaping what their policy makers have sown.

Those policy makers may wind up reaping consequences of their own — a voter backlash in next fall’s election. Pending that, at the very least, the governor may want to reconsider who’s in charge over at his corrections department.

Denver Gazette editorial board