By John Kellner

The state does not have a “prison crowding” problem. It has a prison under-capacity problem. This is a crucial distinction for lawmakers and the public to understand. If it is not properly understood, the state risks falling into the same kind of criminal justice system spiral that mistakes leniency for clemency. This is as much an economic and budgetary issue as a social one. Colorado’s crime spike of the early 2020s had severe economic consequences. In 2022 alone, crime drained $27.2 billion from the state’s economy. This era of slowing growth is not the moment to risk future economic prospects.

Colorado’s prisons are not “overcrowded” so much as they are underutilized. 

Through the entire decade of the 2010s, Colorado’s total prison and jail population hovered stably around 20,000 inmates. As of January 2026, there were just more than 18,300 inmates in Colorado prisons and jails. To characterize Colorado’s corrections facilities as “overcrowded” when they hold roughly 2,000 fewer inmates than 10 years ago is misleading. In fact, Colorado today incarcerates fewer people per capita than it did a decade ago, even as population growth has continued. 

It is also misleading to say Colorado’s inmate population is “growing.” A more accurate term would be “recovering.” 

The timeline of Colorado’s inmate population matters. Even at current levels, prisons are only regaining population after a historic dip in incarceration during the early 2020s. That decline coincided with policy changes, altered enforcement patterns, and disruptions to the justice system that reduced admissions and accelerated releases. What we are seeing now is not unchecked growth, but a partial reversion toward prior norms. 

This kind of loose protocol regarding criminal incarceration is directly tied to crime rates. This was established by a landmark study from the Common Sense Institute. 

The study identified a clear association between recidivism, prison population and crime rates. There is a negative correlation coefficient between prison population and crime rates. Simply put, as Colorado’s prison population increases, crime rates tend to decrease. Though this does not prove a direct causal mechanism in every instance, it is consistent with longstanding criminological findings that deterrence and incapacitation play meaningful roles in public safety outcomes. 

This matters. The late 2010s and early 2020s were characterized by a series of criminal justice policies that prioritized leniency rather than incarceration. These included lighter penalty guidelines for low-level drug offenses, expanded diversion programs, and reforms to the definition and tracking of recidivism. As noble as it may seem to pursue rehabilitation alongside punishment, the public bears the cost when sentencing guidelines fail to sufficiently deter repeat offenses or remove chronic offenders from the streets. 

If you shrink the room, the party seems more crowded. That, bluntly, is what happened during the last decade with prisons. 

Several prisons and correctional facilities in Colorado have closed or been deactivated between 2016 and 2026, largely driven by declining inmate populations and policy decisions to reduce reliance on certain facilities. The Cheyenne Mountain Re-Entry Center, a private medium-security prison, closed in 2020. Burlington’s Kit Carson Correctional Center, which housed approximately 1,500 inmates, closed in 2016. The minimum-security Colorado Correctional Center Camp West in Golden closed in 2023. Those are only the most recent. Since 2010, Colorado has shuttered the Huerfano County Correctional Center, the High Plains Correctional Facility, the Fort Lyon Correctional Facility, Colorado State Penitentiary II Cañon City and Hudson Correctional Facility. 

The result is a system with less physical capacity, not an overstuffed prison complex brought on by overly strict criminal laws. 

It is critical that lawmakers understand clearly what happened in the past decade of Colorado’s criminal justice management. 

Claims of systemic “overcrowding” obscure the underlying reality. Colorado’s crime rates rose during the same period in which incarceration levels fell sharply. Now that incarceration levels are stabilizing and partially rebounding, policymakers should be cautious about repeating the assumptions that contributed to that divergence. 

This tension between policies that reduce inmate populations and investments that expand capacity underscores the importance of accurately diagnosing the problem. Without that clarity, the state risks pursuing strategies that neither improve public safety nor create a stable, sustainable corrections system.

John Kellner, a former 18th Judicial District attorney, is the managing partner at the Dan Caplis Law firm and Owens Early Criminal Justice Fellow for the Common Sense Institute.