Colorado Department of Corrections

Wine, Wine, Wine

The Pen is Mightier Than the Pen

Westword Now Exhibit A in Death Penalty Tussle

Swapping One McPrison for Another

Inflation, low pay and the high cost of prison bumwad

A Real Harass Man

Joe Paolino played a major role in cases that have cost the state more than a million dollars.

If David Isberg can beat cancer, why not the prison bureaucracy?

Medical treatment for prisoners and halfway-house residents can be tough to swallow. Health care inside prison walls can be downright criminal, a situation we’ve chronicled in some detail in our Crime and Punishment Archive. But the care can actually be worse for parolees, since the Colorado ... More >>

Colorado inmates may soon have "missing person" playing cards

A missing-person playing card. Soon, playing cards in Colorado jails could be replaced by ones emblazoned with the photos of missing persons and unsolved homicide victims, says a Colorado Department of Corrections representative, who adds the new playing-card program "hasn’t actually started, ... More >>

Off Limits

Sugar and spice

Letters to the Editor

From the week of January 2, 2003

A Boulder scientist fights the short pour

From the week of January 2, 2003

Arapahoe County DA Charges Death-Penalty Fees to the State

How does DA Carol Chambers beat the high cost of a death-penalty prosecution? By billing the prison system.

If the Jailhouse Is Rockin'…

How does DA Carol Chambers beat the high cost of a death-penalty prosecution? By billing the prison system.

Grape Expectations

The monks have moved on, but it's another vintage year in Cañon City.

The Price You Pay

The cost of sending money to prisoners just went up -- way up.

Year in Review: Strange But True

From kitty cut-ups to an airline named Ted, this was one oddball year.

Scratching the Bitch

Joseph Paiva was born defective, but prosecutors stamped him a habitual criminal.

Follow That Story

Jokin' Joe Has Left and Gone Away

Off Limits

A snitch in time...

Side Effects

Pharmacist Bob Gusich has been a real pill for the state prison system.

Reach Out and Gouge Someone

How inmate phone services lock up profits.

Just Hop on the Van, Man

Transported by private companies, wayward inmates discover that their journey to prison can be a long, strange trip.

Con Jobs

Frying taco shells, growing zinnias--it's all in a day's work for Colorado prisoners.

This Jail for Hire

Colorado's cheap solution to prison overcrowding has cost inmates plenty. It could cost the state millions.

OFF LIMITS

Colorado's cheap solution to prison overcrowding has cost inmates plenty. It could cost the state millions.

ON THE OFFENSIVE

Colorado's cheap solution to prison overcrowding has cost inmates plenty. It could cost the state millions.

Colorado's answer to swine flu: Close the prisons?

You got to love the way officials in this state think. According to this item in the Colorado Springs Gazette, the Colorado Department of Corrections has decided to ban visitors and volunteers from state and private prisons for at least a week, describing the move as a "precautionary" step to keep ... More >>

Male guards and female prisoners -- a brilliant idea!

Photo by John Johnston There's plenty to get disgusted about in the story of a Colorado female inmate who was awarded $1.3 million in damages for two years' worth of sexual assaults by a male guard. As this report in the Denver Post recounts, federal judge David Ebel blasted the Colorado Department ... More >>

Mile High Murder: Kevin Stunes convicted of murdering girlfriend Nancy Bannock last Thanksgiving

View Larger Map This just in from the Adams County District Attorney's Office. Late yesterday, Kevin Duane Stunes was convicted of first-degree murder for killing Nancy Bannock last Thanksgiving at 1616 E. 78th Avenue, an area captured in the graphic above (if you have problems seeing the image, cl ... More >>

Clemency for these six prisoners could save millions and serve justice -- so why won't Governor Ritter try it?

View Larger Map This just in from the Adams County District Attorney's Office. Late yesterday, Kevin Duane Stunes was convicted of first-degree murder for killing Nancy Bannock last Thanksgiving at 1616 E. 78th Avenue, an area captured in the graphic above (if you have problems seeing the image, cl ... More >>

Grim details emerge in prison death of sex offender

Inmates claim Ronald Ferguson had been in the unit only a few hours when he was killed.​Last week, we reported on the bludgeoning death of inmate Ronald Ferguson, a convicted child molester, at the Colorado Territorial Correctional Facility outside of Canon City. A fifty-year-old habitual off ... More >>

This one-man crime wave is going a hundred miles down a dead-end street

Inmates claim Ronald Ferguson had been in the unit only a few hours when he was killed.​Last week, we reported on the bludgeoning death of inmate Ronald Ferguson, a convicted child molester, at the Colorado Territorial Correctional Facility outside of Canon City. A fifty-year-old habitual off ... More >>

New website shines light on dark corners of the prison system

What goes on beyond the fence? Solitary Watch wants to know.​Get in serious trouble, go to prison. Get into some bad shit inside prison -- attacking staff, running heroin, or maybe somebody doesn't like your gang tattoo -- and you go to the hole, also known as solitary confinement or (in priso ... More >>

Will throwing more money at the prison system reduce inmate violence?

​Recent Denver Post stories about increasing inmate violence at some state prisons have arrived just in time for the annual budget battle between lawmakers and the Colorado Department of Corrections -- a nice bit of timing that should be regarded with a certain wariness. The DOC would like t ... More >>

Comment on this: State employee's prolific Denver Post postings draw fire

​Davies loves a good debate. The avid Denver Post reader posted 624 comments in response to articles on the newspaper's website during a nine-month period that started last February -- an average of fifteen comments a week -- on topics ranging from Afghanistan to global warming, campaign fina ... More >>

Census problem: Are Colorado prisoners rural residents or urban visitors?

​The 2010 census gives states a new option for how to count their prison population, a move that could provide additional political leverage to urban areas -- which, in Colorado, means more power to the Front Range and less to places like Fremont, Logan and Crowley counties. In the past, the ... More >>

Dirty prison tricks: Kansas adopts Colorado's asbestos removal program for inmates

Mark MangerFort Lyon inmates say they faced asbestos exposure in maintenance operations. ​A recent story in the Topeka Capital-Journal about a 2005 renovation at a Kansas women's prison has a familiar ring to it. Inmates and corrections employees have long claimed that they were forced to rem ... More >>

Roberto Rodriguez's conviction: A warning to groping coaches everywhere

Roberto Rodriguez.​In recent months, two high school coaches -- Broomfield's Trevor Masse and Longmont's Alex Tinsley -- have been busted on suspicion of inappropriate sexual contact with students. So the five-year sentence handed to Roberto Rodriguez, a middle-school soccer coach, for doing p ... More >>

Labia-lift searches of female prisoners have to stop, ACLU tells Ari Zavaras

​A few months ago we first reported on the "labia lift" -- an extremely invasive search process that the Colorado Department of Corrections has started using at its Denver women's prison. Now the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado has taken notice -- and demanded that the DOC immedia ... More >>

Prison advice about snitching, shanks and pretending that man with makeup is a woman

​Here at the Criminal Affairs Desk, we get letters from inmates. Boy, do we get letters. But one recent missive from a Colorado prisoner offers some of the best advice we've ever heard for negotiating a long stretch in the state prison system. Such as: Don't ask, don't snitch. Keep an eye out ... More >>

Solitary confinement study "deeply flawed," says ACLU

​As reported here last summer, a controversial state study suggesting no harmful psychological effects from solitary confinement was drawing heated protests from prison activists even before it was published. Now that it's been released, psychiatric experts and the ACLU of Colorado are saying ... More >>

Mentally ill prisoners in solitary confinement: New bill seeks to stop the madness

​Roughly four out of every ten prisoners in solitary confinement in Colorado is either developmentally disabled or mentally ill, a figure that's been rising steadily over the past decade. Senate Bill 176, headed for a statehouse committee review later this week, seeks to drastically reduce tha ... More >>

Top 25 most violent fugitives in Denver: A mug shot and offense gallery (PHOTOS)

"I'm only No. 20?"​The Denver Police Department has trimmed its fifty most wanted fugitives list by half but multiplied the mayhem via its roster of the city's 25 most violent fugitives. The mug shots of those who follow first target Robert Juan Gee stand out thanks to the best neck tattoo (No ... More >>

Fort Lyon prison "repurposing": Five best new uses for an aging hoosgow

Mark Manger​A delegation from Bent County and Governor John Hickenlooper's office went to Washington this week in an effort to interest the federal government in "repurposing" the Fort Lyon Correctional Facility, a remote and troubled state prison on the eastern plains that's scheduled to clos ... More >>

Michael McCullar, 11 others, sentenced in violent Adams County meth ring (PHOTOS)

Big pics below.​How many addicts does it take to make a meth ring profitable? Fewer than you might think. According to the Seventeenth Judicial District DA's office, a group of a dozen just-sentenced dealers and compatriots, led by Michael McCullar, are thought to have regularly serviced betwe ... More >>

Prison rape: Sheriff compares it to UFO sightings, other "cultural delusions"

​Corrections officials are understandably defensive about a controversial Bureau of Justice Statistics survey that indicates a high incidence of prisoner sexual abuse in their facilities. But is that any reason for jail bosses to claim inmates are concocting fake stories of prison rape in orde ... More >>

Reader: Prison rape does occur in the Colorado system whether officials want to admit it or not

​Alan Prendergast's post about prison rape, which one sheriff compared to UFOs and other cultural delusions, sparked a response from a reader identifying himself as a veteran correctional officer. He says such incidents are no fantasy.

Nick Beram sentenced for five bank robberies as stun-gun wielding Sparky bandit

Big pic below.​Nick Beram did everything he could to disguise himself while robbing five area banks while armed with a stun gun. During the crimes, he wore sunglasses, a dark-hooded jacket and a white surgical or dust mask. But he didn't bother to disguise his truck -- and that's why he's bee ... More >>

Letters: Readers have little sympathy for Josh Beckius

Big pic below.​Nick Beram did everything he could to disguise himself while robbing five area banks while armed with a stun gun. During the crimes, he wore sunglasses, a dark-hooded jacket and a white surgical or dust mask. But he didn't bother to disguise his truck -- and that's why he's bee ... More >>

Solitary confinement: Isolating prisoners overused in Colorado, study suggests

​A study by researchers at the National Institute of Corrections has found that Colorado's approach to locking down its most unruly prisoners in 23-hour-a-day isolation is "basically sound" -- but could be used a lot less. Instead, even as the state's prison population is declining slightly, t ... More >>