Colorado scrambles to find more prison beds
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A CoreCivic private prison. Photo: Emily Curiel/ Kansas City Star via Getty Images
To address rising inmate populations, Colorado is preparing to spend more than $26 million in next year's budget on additional prison capacity.
Why it matters: The money is making it harder for state lawmakers to balance a budget with a $1.5 billion shortfall.
- The trend also infuriates progressive Democrats who are working to reduce incarceration rates.
Driving the news: In the $46.8 billion budget package introduced this week, lawmakers earmarked:
- $13 million for an additional 941 prison beds, including 153 at private facilities
- $11.5 million to increase payments to private prison operators, such as CoreCivic
- $1.9 million to pay local jails to hold state inmates
The intrigue: The uptick in the prison population comes as Colorado sees declining crime rates and increasing numbers of inmates who are eligible for parole but not yet released.
The Polis administration is taking the brunt of the criticism about the contradiction.
- Earlier this year, Axios Denver reported that the overall increase stems in part from a change in how the Department of Corrections enforces parole violations.
- More recently, Gov. Jared Polis asked lawmakers to immediately open a new prison at a cost of roughly $200 million.
Yes, but: Democratic lawmakers balked at the idea and opted instead to pay private prisons to house more of the state's inmates.
What we're watching: Democratic lawmakers are preparing legislation to address how the prison population is managed by the state, but it's a long-running debate that is so far without a solution.
- "While there may be increases in the short term, we're hopeful that the bills in the process right now will make sure that the right people are staying behind bars and the right people who can be released into the community are being released," state Rep. Kyle Brown (D-Louisville) told his colleagues at a hearing Tuesday.