The General Assembly’s Joint Budget Committee has approved nearly $3 million in supplemental funding for the Colorado Department of Corrections to cover the cost of additional prison beds amid an ongoing crisis of prison overcrowding.

Last month, DOC facilities reached a vacancy level of 3% for 30 consecutive days, prompting the governor to implement the Prison Population Management Measures established by a 2018 law. The measures include requiring the state’s parole board to compile a list of inmates with low-level offenses who are eligible for parole and can be released from DOC facilities to bring population numbers back down to more manageable levels.

The issue of overcrowding in state prisons has been a growing concern for months, with county sheriffs sounding the alarm in May over the shortage of prison beds, which has resulted in increased strain on local jails.

Prison populations have increased significantly in recent months for several reasons, including a rise in individuals being sentenced to jail time for technical parole violations, which are criminal infractions that violate parole conditions.

Further exacerbating the issue, state lawmakers eliminated about 300 beds from prison facilities during the last legislative session due to a lack of funds. The state approved funding to reopen 100 of those beds starting in July, and on Tuesday, DOC requested an additional $2.8 million to fund 153 more beds in the state’s medium-security correctional facilities for men.

According to JBC staffer Justin Brakke, the DOC’s inmate population is “well above” what the department’s budget can account for. While DOC’s overall vacancy rate is about 3%, medium-security facilities, which are the most common and often used to house new inmates coming from local jails, have recently seen vacancy rates as low as 0.71%.

While the General Assembly is only required to pay for part of local expenses, the current line item for local jails is funded based on an average daily population of 263 inmates — according to Brakke, local jails are facing a backlog of about 500 inmates.

A letter sent to the JBC by Colorado Criminal Justice Reform Coalition Executive Director Christine Donner and cosigned by over 70 law firms, advocacy groups, and political organizations urged the committee to reject DOC’s supplemental request, or at least delay it until their next quarterly meeting.

Donner urged JBC to “inquire further and get data on what DOC has done or plans to do” regarding issues like underuse of community corrections facilities, technical parole revocations, and parole plan delays.

The letter also accused DOC of opposing “every reform policy proposal” offered by the coalition, “despite decades of past collaboration to improve the system” and noted that the department includes its inmates that are housed in county jails as part of their prison population, but excludes the beds that are already funded in those jails as part of their available capacity, inflating the size of its facilties’ population and underreporting their capacity.

Donner noted that earlier in the month, Gov. Jared Polis ordered over $100 million in cuts across agencies, including Medicaid, higher education, and the Department of Public Health and Environment.

“Other state departments have been required to tighten their budgets and manage their programs more efficiently,” she wrote. “DOC should be held to the same standard. Approving this supplemental request means choosing prisons over healthcare, over housing, and over higher education. We
are confident this is not a choice Coloradans support, especially when DOC could instead choose to adopt more effective practices to manage the prison population.”

Some of the JBC’s more progressive members agreed with the statements made in the coalition letter. Rep. Emily Sirota, D-Denver, said she wanted to see the DOC prove that they are taking the steps to address the issues mentioned in the letter.

“I want to know that some action is being taken to be more proactive about getting people who can be safely released into the community or into community corrections,” added Sen. Judy Amabile, D-Boulder. “I want to know that that’s happening before we just agree every year to vote for more beds.”

The request was approved on a 4-2 vote, with Sirota and Amabile objecting.