04/16/2026
PRISON LEGISLATION
Here are a couple of pieces about legislation taking place in the Colorado state house from the Colorado Criminal Justice Reform Coalition. They're both good examples of how state prisons (here and elsewhere) tend to expand and communities get screwed out of sensible state support:
Get the Facts on the Fentanyl Ballot Measure
by Manige Blackburn-Giles, Community Organizer
This November, Colorado voters will face a high-stakes decision on a ballot measure that would substantially increase sentences for drug-related offenses where fentanyl is detected. Proponents say they are bringing it to the ballot as a response to the overdose crisis. But the details matter.
That’s why we’re launching Get the Facts on the Fentanyl Ballot Measure — to ensure voters have clear, accurate information before they cast their vote.
What the measure does
At its core, this proposal would significantly increase prison sentences for drug-related offenses where fentanyl is detected. It applies mandatory 8-to-32-year prison sentences — currently reserved for the most serious drug trafficking cases — to all drug distribution crimes, regardless of the amount of drugs. This includes drug sharing, where no money even changed hands.
Under this measure, an 18-year-old sharing even one pill with a friend could face the same mandatory 8-to-32-year prison sentence as the highest-level drug trafficker. Judges would have no discretion to impose a lesser sentence.
People could face these penalties even if they didn’t know fentanyl was present, which is common due to widespread cross-contamination in the drug supply.
It would also make any amount of fentanyl possession a felony, including first-time cases, even if the person didn’t know fentanyl was present.
A nonpartisan fiscal analysis estimates the measure would send nearly 900 additional people to prison each year, at a time when Colorado’s prison system is already nearing capacity.
The cost is significant
Nonpartisan estimates show the measure would require major prison expansion. Bringing new prison space online costs about $413,000 per cell, and incarceration costs about $68,000 per person per year. In total, the measure is projected to cost over $400 million in the first four years, with no identified funding source.
What the measure does NOT do
The measure provides no new funding for either the increased incarceration or the treatment it mandates for some first-time, low-level possession cases. That means the state would have to either raise revenue or cut funding from things like education and healthcare.
It also does not increase penalties for high-level traffickers. Instead, it increases penalties for lower-level cases.
From an impact perspective, research shows that:
It would not reduce drug use or drug sales. 1, 2, 3
It would not disrupt the drug supply. 2
It would not expand access to treatment.
It would not reduce overdose deaths & may increase them. 1, 3
Prison Expansion — Colorado at a Moral Crossroads
by Kyle Giddings, Deputy Director
Right now, Colorado is at a moral crossroads.
We’re just over halfway through the legislative session, and every day has been a fight to prevent prison expansion and show that another way is possible. In the same state budget where we are cutting healthcare for children, funding for schools, substance abuse treatment, and support for people with severe disabilities; and where legislators have already funded 941 additional prison beds, effectively exhausting the state’s existing capacity; Governor Polis is now telling legislators the state has “no choice” but to “immediately” purchase a private prison that has been closed since 2010.
In a move that shocked legislators on the Joint Budget Committee, the Governor and the Department of Corrections (DOC) requested $150–$200 million on March 18th to purchase and renovate the closed Huerfano County Correctional Center in Walsenburg, using a mix of the state’s emergency funds and debt financing.
This is not just a budgeting decision. It’s a decision that reflects what kind of state Colorado will be. Budgets are moral documents; what we choose to invest in and what we are willing to cut when resources are limited clearly reflects our priorities and the kind of future we are trying to build.
At this moment, Colorado must decide: do we invest in healthcare, behavioral healthcare, and education? Or expand prisons?
How did we get here?
Despite what the Governor and DOC claim, a new prison is not inevitable. Growth in Colorado’s prison population is not driven by crime or new prison admissions. It is driven by policy and administrative decisions.
The increase in Colorado’s prison population — about 60 men per month1 — is largely the result of a decline in discretionary parole releases.2 Fewer people are being released on parole, more are being revoked for technical parole violations, and hundreds who are otherwise approved for release remain incarcerated due to a lack of supportive housing.
At the same time, staffing shortages and system bottlenecks are delaying access to programs, parole planning, and other requirements, keeping people in prison longer than necessary. For the past several years, CCJRC has been at the front line in calling for a proactive response to the growing prison population and the chronic DOC staffing crisis.
Rather than addressing these issues, DOC and the Governor’s office blocked our proposed policy solutions to safely neutralize growth in the prison population. As capacity tightens, their response has never been better management, only expansion.
What’s at stake in Walsenburg
The proposed Walsenburg facility has been closed for over 15 years and would require substantial repairs. At the same time, the city’s 100-year old water system is already under strain, with recent failures leaving its 3,000 residents without water for over a week, and under a boil advisory.
The mayor of Walsenburg stated that no one from the Governor’s office contacted him regarding reopening a prison that would add hundreds of staff and up to 700 incarcerated people to the city’s water system. Unlike town residents, people inside a prison cannot boil their water. They can’t leave to shower somewhere else, or drive to another town to get clean water. Any infrastructure failures would fall heavily on those living and working inside, and the risk of inhumane conditions is real.
The proposal lacks the basic due diligence one would expect in a publicly funded real estate deal. There are no publicly available inspection reports, no itemized repair estimates, and no clear accounting of total costs.
An alternative proposal would lease the facility from a private operator at a per diem rate, costing roughly $150 million over five years if fully utilized — all while the state is making deep cuts to healthcare, K–12 education, and services for people with disabilities due to the budget shortfall.
There is another path
Expansion is not the only option. A new prison is not necessary. The state already granted funding for enough capacity to meet projected demand for over a year, which should be used to implement population management strategies and expand reentry capacity.
CCJRC has put forward concrete solutions:
Pass CCJRC’s priority bill SB26-036: Prison Population Management Measures, which would strengthen the state’s existing prison population management measures to increase discretionary parole releases, better utilize community corrections, and expand earned time for people close to their mandatory or statutory release dates
Invest in reentry, increasing funding to the WAGEES community reentry grant program to expand housing and other reentry support services
Increase funding for nursing home, hospice, and medical placements for elderly and medically fragile people (who are by far the most expensive to incarcerate)
Opening a new prison does not solve the underlying problems. It commits the state to higher incarceration and long-term costs.
The state does not lack options
What it lacks at this moment is the will from the Governor and the DOC to pursue them.
Colorado can choose to reduce the prison population, invest in reentry, and address the policy failures driving prison growth. Or it can move forward with expansion and accept the long-term costs and heartbreaking tradeoffs that come with it.
Years from now, people will look back at this moment and ask what Colorado chose when it had the opportunity to go in a different direction. Did we invest in schools, healthcare, housing, and communities, or did we expand prisons because it was easier than fixing the system? This is the moment where that choice is made.
1 The women’s population remains largely flat.
2 According to the nonpartisan Joint Budget Committee staff
