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)
Colorado lawmakers in 2018 unanimously approved a law that was meant to speed up the release of eligible people behind bars when state prisons got too full. But the law hasn’t worked as intended since it was triggered for the first time in mid-2025.
The so-called prison population management measures have barely made a dent in the Colorado Department of Corrections’ vacancy rate after four months, meaning state prisons remain at or near capacity without enough room for the growing prison population…