CO - Gov. Jared Polis asks for new prisons
Spike CO
With jails overcrowding, Gov. Jared Polis asks for new prisons as state faces $1.5 billion shortfall
The Polis administration is asking for hundreds of millions of dollars to expand the state’s prison system, just as Colorado’s legislators are bracing for a worsening fiscal outlook.
The request sets up a clash over priorities at a time when the state faces a nearly $1.5 billion shortfall.
The administration is seeking to add prison beds amid overcrowding, though advocates on both sides of the spectrum disagree over its cause. Some advocates have argued that the crisis is partly the result of a backlog of inmates awaiting parole placement. Others maintained that the “crisis” resulted from Democrats’ policies that ultimately seek to release offenders back into communities.
On Wednesday, the governor asked budget writers for money to fund one or possibly two new prisons to address the prison bed crisis.
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To relieve the backlog, the Office of State Planning and Budgeting suggests purchasing the Huerfano Corrections Facility in Walsenburg, which closed in 2010 and had a capacity of 752 beds, according to the proposal. It’s a private facility, currently owned by CoreCivic.
It would need somewhere between $150 million and $200 million to buy the prison and renovate it to reach the medium security level the state needs most.
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