The Colorado Senate on Wednesday approved a bill to strengthen a 2018 law meant to speed up the release of eligible people behind bars when state prisons are too full. 

Senate Bill 26-36 makes several changes to the state’s prison population management measures, which have not had the intended effect after they were triggered for the first time in August. Only a couple dozen people have been granted parole since the measures have been in effect. 

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The vacancy rate in state prisons stood at 1.92% as of Aug. 16, marking the 30th consecutive day the Colorado Department of Corrections maintained a vacancy rate below 3%. That means state prisons were more than 97% full, which can present safety issues for the incarcerated population and the people who work in prisons. 

At the end of March, the prison vacancy rate stood at just below 3%. Additionally, more than 600 people were held in county jails awaiting transfer to state prisons. The state budgets for just over 250 people to be temporarily held in county jails. 

The law passed in 2018 requires that the department take certain steps to reduce the incarcerated population once that threshold is reached. The department must also notify certain parties — such as the governor, district attorneys and the parole board — when the measures take effect.  

The bill would trigger the prison population management measures once the vacancy rate is below 4% for 30 consecutive days. It also expands on the department’s reporting requirements, adding more people and entities to the list of who it must notify of the low vacancy rate. The department would need to share monthly updates on the progress made to reduce the prison population while the measures are activated.

Currently, the measures cease when the vacancy rate rises above 4% for 30 consecutive days. If the bill becomes law, the measures would cease when the vacancy rate rises above 5% for 30 consecutive days. 

More serious crimes are excluded from the provisions of the prison population management measures, including high level drug offenses and crimes that fall under the Colorado Victim Rights Act. 

‘Manage growth to prevent overcrowding’

While the bill was first introduced in January, it didn’t have its first committee hearing until April after months of negotiations with the governor’s office, bill sponsor Senator Mike Weissman, an Aurora Democrat, said. Several major amendments to the bill passed in its committee hearings, and a few more on the Senate floor. 

Weissman emphasized that when someone is released on parole, they are still under supervision by Corrections, and parole can be revoked if someone breaks their terms. He said it is essential that the department has room to move around people in its custody in case of emergencies, like mechanical issues in the prisons or the need to separate certain people. 

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“We know from hearing from our correctional employees that their safety is jeopardized when things get into too much of a crunch,” Weissman said. 

Some people who receive shorter sentences don’t get transferred to prison until they are already eligible to be released on parole. If the bill passes, the department would be required to notify courts when that happens, and the defendant’s attorney would then file a motion to reconsider their sentence.

Those are the people who should be considered for alternative sentencing, said Christie Donner, executive director of the Colorado Criminal Justice Reform Coalition. 

“There’s nothing DOC can do for them when they come in with such short time, and then all we’ve done is destabilize them,” Donner said. 

Definitions of prison vacancies would also be clarified in the bill. The backlog of people in county jail waiting to be transferred to state prisons grows when there is limited capacity in state prisons, and Donner said the bill would require that some of those people are counted in the state prisons’ average daily population.

“The whole point of this bill is really just to level out growth and manage growth to prevent overcrowding,” Donner said. “It’s not meant as a major decarceration bill. So where can we identify efficiencies and good candidates for release and just kind of get the gears greased?”  

One major change from the original version of the bill is the removal of a provision that would have granted an additional 60 days of earned time to someone within 120 days of their mandatory release date.  

Other prison population management bills

The Colorado Legislature is considering two other bills that intend to ease overcrowding in prisons. Both have also passed the Senate. 

Senate Bill 26-158 would allow the parole board to approve an application for early parole for someone who completed a specialized program for people convicted when they were younger than 21 years old. The governor has final authority to allow parole for people who complete the program, but he hasn’t granted it to anyone since 2023. The bill would move the decision to the parole board if the governor doesn’t take action within 60 days of the application. 

Senate Bill 26-159 tweaks the state’s earned time formula and directs the DOC to implement policies that would incentivize good behavior. It also establishes a working group that will make recommendations on how the DOC can best manage its capacity. 

The prison population management measures bill passed the Senate on a 22-12 vote, with Republicans voting against it. The 2018 bill passed with bipartisan, near unanimous support from the full Legislature. The bill will go through additional hearings and votes in the House before it goes to Governor Jared Polis’ desk to be signed into law. 

Senator Julie Gonzales, a Denver Democrat, also sponsors the bill. Its House sponsors are Representative Jennifer Bacon, a Denver Democrat, and Representative Yara Zokaie, a Fort Collins Democrat.