DENVER — Colorado's prisons are overcrowded, according to some state legislators, so they're working on a fix through a new bill aimed at prison population management measures.
It's something formerly incarcerated individuals like Melody Gillenwater think needs to be considered to keep experiences like hers from happening.
"I was a DOC client waiting to go to prison, and I had to sit there four months waiting to go," Gillenwater said.
The reason she was given was simple: the system was backed up.
"I was backlogged. I was literally backlogged, just waiting every day to get picked up from for prison. And I sat in county jail waiting," Gillenwater said.
The issue came to a head for the Colorado Department of Corrections and state legislators in August, when a prison vacancy law passed in 2018 was triggered, alerting the state that less than 3% of available space remained.
"Interestingly, every year the legislature is told we are given projections on the incarcerated population, including our jail backlogs. And what we found is we're not paroling people, and we're not releasing people, and we don't get that data," one of the bill's sponsors, Rep. Jennifer Bacon, D-Denver, said.
SB26-036 is a potential solution in Bacon's view. The bill is awaiting a hearing in the House Appropriations Committee. Bacon said it would get more inmates in front of the parole board and require that data on mandatory release dates be shared.
"If the judge says you're only supposed to stay here for five years, they're only supposed to stay there for five years," Bacon said. "And we also say that the people who are eligible for parole that they should be prioritized, and that process could be sped up," Bacon said.
Bacon addressed concerns about public safety the bill might raise.
"These are not what we call the victims' rights crimes or the violent crimes. These are the lower level, typically property crimes," Bacon said.
Earlier this year, the state's joint budget committee approved funding to increase bed capacity in a new prison, according to a spokesperson for Gov. Jared Polis' office. Bacon said that approach comes at a cost to taxpayers.
Denver7 did reach out to a victim advocates group and did not receive a response.
Opponents of SB26-036 were also contacted for this story but did not agree to an interview.
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