Redemption Campaign

1. Make decisions on all commutation petitions within three months of approval by the Clemency Board.
2. Direct the Parole Board to facilitate expedited parole application hearings for people who can be safely released and are already past their parole eligibility dates.
3. Create a program to facilitate expedited commutation for people who can be safely released, with the stated goal of safely releasing at least 1,000 people a year, on a rolling basis throughout the year.
   1. Program development should be based on input from expert community members, including impacted people, to identify categories of eligible individuals.
   2. Potential categories of individuals for expedited consideration:
      • People who were sentenced for crimes for which the General Assembly subsequently reduced the sentencing range;
      • People convicted of drug distribution or possession offenses;
      • People incarcerated for technical probation or parole violations;
      • People aged 60 or older;
      • People who have served a substantial portion of their sentence and meet one or more of the following conditions:
        • Are veterans;
        • Are survivors of domestic abuse, in cases where there is a nexus between the abuse and the offense;
        • Are serving a sentence for a crime committed at age 25 or younger;
        • Are convicted of nonhomicides and are serving sentences of longer than 20 calendar years;
        • Are serving life without parole for felony murder or extreme indifference murder;
        • Are serving sentences imposed under the habitual sentencing law;
        • People who have served a significant portion of their sentence and have a demonstrated record of rehabilitation in prison as well as the skills and support systems to have a successful reentry into society.

• The aging prison population. In Colorado prisons, people over 50 are the fastest-growing segment of the prison population. Between 2000 and 2019, the number of incarcerated people over 50 grew by more than eight times the rate of the general prison population.
• The rapid growth in the number of women incarcerated. A surge in drug felony filings — mostly for simple possession — is driving demand for prison beds and having a disproportionate impact on women. The Colorado Criminal Justice Reform Coalition found from 2015 to 2016, the number of individuals sentenced to prison for drug possession increased 24% among women, compared to 17% overall. There are more women incarcerated in Colorado than ever before, despite posing little public safety risk.
• The number of people incarcerated for nonviolent parole violations. In 2019, 23% of people admitted into prisons in Colorado were incarcerated for a technical parole violation. That means 2,205 people were incarcerated because they violated their parole, not by committing a new violent offense, but for simply failing to appear at a parole meeting or failing a drug test.
• The number of people incarcerated for drugs and non-violent offenses. In 2019, almost 8,000 incarcerated people in Colorado were in prison despite their most serious offense being non-violent. Almost 2,000 people are incarcerated for drugs.
• Mass incarceration does not keep us safe. If incarceration worked to stop violence, the United States would have one of the lowest crime rates in the world, given its penchant for punishment. Instead, it is a nation with a homicide by firearm rate of 29.7 per one million people, compared with Canada’s 5.1 per one million, Germany’s 1.9 per one million, and Australia’s 1.4 per one million. And it is a nation in which every year nearly three thousand young men of color are murdered before their twenty‑fifth birthday.
• Prison may even increase crime. Imprisonment does not rehabilitate, but rather, it frequently does the exact opposite because incarcerated people are separated from their families and support networks, placed in a dehumanizing institution that is isolating and hampers prosocial relationships with other people, and upon release, results in stigma and discrimination that prevents access to public benefits, housing and jobs.
• People age out of crime. Research shows that age is one of the main predictors of violence. The risk for violence peaks in adolescence or early adulthood and then declines with age, yet we incarcerate people long after their risk has declined.

• Governor Jay Inslee of Washington commuted the sentences of over 1000 incarcerated people.
• Governor Andy Beshear of Kentucky has commuted the sentences of at least 832 incarcerated people.
• Governor Kate Brown of Oregon commuted the sentences of 253 incarcerated people after declaring a state of emergency amid the pandemic.
• Governor Larry Hogan of Maryland issued an executive order making around 1,200 incarcerated people eligible for early release.
• New Jersey has reduced its prison population by around 35% since the pandemic began.
• At least 1,388 incarcerated people have been granted early release in Arkansas; that state’s prison population has been reduced by approximately 10%.
• The Iowa Department of Corrections has given early release to over 800 incarcerated people. 
• The prison population has dropped by 19% in North Dakota.

Broader decarceration efforts. In response to the problems of mass incarceration and pervasive structural racism in our criminal legal system, government leaders in the United States have increasingly taken action to reduce prison populations and safely release people. For example:

• In 2019, Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt commuted the sentences of 527 incarcerated people in the largest mass commutation in U.S. history.
• In 2019 in Pennsylvania, the lieutenant governor, who is the head of the board of pardons, revitalized commutations after decades of dormancy; 14 incarcerated people serving life imprisonment had their sentences commuted and were released in 2019.

Meanwhile, Governor Polis has released only 4 people.

The mass incarceration system imposes tremendous collateral consequences and social, political, and cultural costs upon incarcerated people individuals who are caught up in its churn of the prison system. These costs include the loss of the right to vote, the loss of public benefits, the loss of access to public housing, barriers to obtaining employment and the unquantifiable psychological and emotional impact on incarcerated individuals, their children, and their family members. Not only have decades of expanding prison populations cost taxpayers billions, and destroyed families and livelihoods, but it has left little room for rehabilitation, healing, or second chances. Yet, redemption is real and change is possible. Demika Rogers came to prison as a 25-year-old woman who survived a life of abuse and neglect. Over the course of her 15 years incarcerated, she has since dramatically transformed herself into a leader who works to help others. She is a chef, actor, facilitator for the Alternatives to Violence Program, founder of the Women of Influence program and active participant in the New Beginnings Church. She has also raised hundreds of dollars for nonprofits. She dreams of returning to her three children and one day starting a nonprofit of her own to help children whose parents are incarcerated. Demika is more than the worst thing she’s ever done. Piecemeal reforms are no longer an option. Governors must take action to make things right.