Colorado prison beds could run out by 2026 and lawmakers face hard choices

By Cory Gaines | Commentary, Colorado Accountability Project

Spidey sense is tingling on the jail population …

I had a reader mention something I thought worth sharing. Colorado has a problem. Our jail’s are nearing capacity. On top of that, we’re struggling to find people willing to guard them.

A Corrections1 link is first below. It’s a copy (without the paywall) of a Denver Post article detailing how a Colorado budget analyst for the legislature’s Joint Budget Committee said we’re going to run out of beds for men in prison as early as 2026. Quoting with link intact:

“Colorado’s prisons will run out of beds for men in the next fiscal year unless significant changes are made to either reduce the prison population or increase capacity, a state analyst projects in a new report. A sharp decrease in parole releases coupled with a steady stream of new prisoners entering custody means the state’s prison population is likely to see one of its biggest annual jumps in the last 15 years during the 2026-27 fiscal year, which begins in July, the analyst found. ‘Things are looking extremely difficult, to put it mildly,’ Justin Brakke, staff analyst for the General Assembly’s Joint Budget Committee, told lawmakers Friday. ‘ … There are challenges on the increasing population front in prison, and there are challenges on the release side… which shapes this entire situation up to be something that is not looking great. To be very blunt, it is not good. I can’t stress that enough.’”**

Colorado Department of Corrections (CDOC) asked for money–per the piece an approximately 5% increase to open up more beds in a couple state prisons–and pointed to the likely cause of the problem. Quoting again:

“’The CDOC works to balance population fluctuations driven by court sentencing and the parole process, which is independent of CDOC and therefore is not a tool the department can use to slow population growth,’ she [Alondra Gonzalez, a spokeswoman for the Department of Corrections] said in the statement. ‘Our primary mission is to fulfill our statutory obligation to provide a safe and secure environment for all individuals remanded to our custody, and budget requests will emphasize that obligation.’”

The problem is that more are coming in and not enough are flowing out.

My spidey sense is tingling here because I have a feeling that the discussion about the problem and the proposed solutions are going to cook up into a pretty heady brew this coming session.

Democrats have put this state’s collective butt in quite a crack. We have no money and have bought and paid for so much extraneous crap that we will struggle to afford the basics like keeping prisoners in jail.

A couple more articles inform my impression about this issue. The second link below is to a Colorado Newsline article (also shared by that same reader), and the third link below is to a 9News articles about how the state parole system is letting dangerous offenders slip through the cracks (and on out the doors of the prison).

Read in tandem with each other, and noting the the ideological proclivities of both outlets, paints an interesting picture. On the one hand you have Newsline which is very much a progressive outlet and thus very much in favor of a soft criminal justice system discussing how a unanimously-passed 2018 law meant to act as a relief valve for the prison system isn’t working “as intended”.

Their framing of the issue, which is of course in line with their ideology, points to what I think will be one solution: why grow the jails when we can let the prisoners out. That’s what you do when our jail system is unfair. You break the mass incarceration chain and let the unjustly locked up go free.

Nevermind that this isn’t what the 2018 law was intended to do, that will be one dynamic at play in the discussion. That’s the solution to the overcrowding problem.

The other dynamic, hinted at in a surprising investigation by 9News (sometimes they surprise you by looking at things you wouldn’t expect from a left-leaning outlet–gotta have something to toss at critics if they claim bias I suppose) will be pushback on the idea of letting prisoners out early based on the danger some present to society.

The reader that sent me the links made reference to the fact that Colorado State Senator Rodriguez runs a halfway house with his wife (see the fourth link below for that context if you want it), and perhaps a solution will somehow make its way to the floor that involves throwing him and other halfway house owners some new business.

If we can’t let them go free, and we can’t keep them in, maybe some money paid to private firms to get them out of jail and into cheaper, halfway supervision is in order.

I’ll keep my eyes and ears open and update as I hear. If you catch wind of something, give me a heads up. Ought to be interesting to watch at least.

**If you wondered, the analyst predicted that the women’s prison population was expected to decline slightly. Cue the jokes about how prisoners should identify.

https://www.corrections1.com/jail-management/colo-prisons-projected-to-run-out-of-beds-for-men-by-2026

https://coloradonewsline.com/2026/01/02/prison-population-law-vacancy-rate/

https://www.9news.com/article/news/investigations/state-calls-findings-of-9news-investigates-reporting-unacceptable-vows-reform-parolee-risk-assessment-system/73-71444a7f-02c5-495c-b72d-0746952b44ec

https://coloradoaccountabilityproject.substack.com/p/as-sen-rodriguez-knows-it-pays-to?utm_source=publication-search

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Changes to the Family and Medical Leave Insurance (FAMLI) program for 2026

Let’s step away from the legislature for a minute and look at changes to the FAMLI program coming in 2026.

The first link below is to a Sum and Substance article on the topic. Quoting from that article:

“Colorado’s Family and Medical Leave Insurance program will take on two smaller but still consequential changes in 2026 —one less than was expected as recently as the middle of last week — of which employers [and you frankly, employer or not] should be aware. First, a law passed during the 2025 legislative session will double the 12 weeks of potential paid leave that a new parent can take if their child is receiving inpatient care in a neonatal intensive care unit. Second, the fee that Colorado employers must pay to sustain the program — or can spilt with their employees — will dip slightly from 0.9% of each worker’s paycheck to 0.88%.”

The former, the change to allow more time for a parent of a child in the NICU is something I’m a little more ambivalent on. I can’t imagine the strain having a child there would put on a parent, and I’m more or less okay an extension of time for someone in that situation (I would be all the more so if perhaps other, more-frivolous claims were excluded at the same time).

The latter change was intriguing to me, however. All the rhetoric around this program had it bankrupting the state and not paying for itself. A drop in premiums is therefore striking.

I will leave it to you to read the article, I point you to the section midway down under the heading, “Change in FAMLI fees”.

READ THE FULL COMMENTARY AT THE COLORADO ACCOUNTABILITY PROJECT

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