Drug Convictions Crowd Colo. Prisons, Spurring New Laws

ACROSS COLORADO – By John Herrick for The Colorado Independent. The department that oversees Colorado’s prisons is again asking the state legislature to open Centennial South, a shuttered prison in Cañon City. Corrections officials say they need more beds to make room for what is expected to be an increase in the number of state prisoners.

Drug users have been filling more of these beds in recent years. As drug overdoses reached a record high last year, so, too, did the number of drug arrests and felony case filings in district courts. Today, according to state data, people with drug charges as their most serious conviction make up the largest share of new admissions to prison. The Department of Corrections estimates that about 74 percent of inmates have a substance use disorder, which includes addictions to opioids like heroin as well as other drugs and alcohol.

This has some lawmakers wondering if too many people addicted to drugs are ending up behind bars.

“Are they supposed to be there in the first place or are there other options?” said Rep. Leslie Herod, a Democrat from Denver and advocate for addiction treatment who will serve as vice chair of the House Judiciary Committee when the legislature gavels in on Jan. 4.

A state budget analyst told lawmakers last week that private prisons are about full, prisoners are sleeping in large plastic trays on the floor, and at least four correctional officers have been hospitalized this year after confrontations with inmates. Colorado’s prison population has been declining even as the state’s general population has grown in recent years. But now, state estimates show the prison population could swell from about 20,000 currently to 25,000 by 2022, far exceeding current bed counts.

READ MORE in The Colorado Independent

Photo by Amanda Slater, Creative Commons, Flickr