Colorado Newsline: Colorado’s prisons are full
in...@coloradocure.org
Colorado’s prisons are full. A 2018 law requires efforts to reduce their population.
Low vacancy rates could trigger expedited parole hearings, halfway house placements
By: Lindsey Toomer - September 8, 2025 4:00 am
The visitors parking lot of the Denver Reception and Diagnostic Center, a state prison within
the Colorado Department of Corrections, taken on Feb. 6, 2020. (Moe Clark/Colorado Newsline)
Criminal justice reform advocates are pressing Colorado corrections officials for more details on their efforts to reduce the state’s prison population after the requirements of a 2018 law were triggered for the first time.
The vacancy rate in state prisons stood at 1.92% as of Aug. 16, marking the 30th consecutive day the department maintained a vacancy rate below 3%, according to a Colorado Department of Corrections letter reviewed by Newsline. House Bill 18-1410, a bipartisan law passed unanimously by the General Assembly in 2018, requires that once that threshold is reached, the department must begin to take steps to reduce the incarcerated population in coordination with the state parole board and the Office of Community Corrections, which oversees halfway houses.
The Office of Community Corrections is required to identify open beds that CDOC can use on a weekly basis until the vacancy rate rises above 4% for 30 consecutive days, according to CDOC spokesperson Alonda Gonzalez. The department must also provide a list of people who are incarcerated who meet a specific set of criteria that would make them eligible for parole to the state parole board.
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