Colorado Prison Problems

Illinois isn't the only state to build a prison that it can't afford to open.

According to The Denver Post, "Construction will be completed this summer on a $208 million maximum-security prison in Cañon City with 948 beds, but the state's budget crisis will keep it closed because there is no money to hire a staff. It would cost $20.5 million to open and occupy the prison, including hiring 581 full-time staff members. The prison has no target opening date."

Does this remind anyone of Thomson (Ill.) Penitentiary, the anticipated home for Gitmo detainees?

To put another violent criminal in maximum security in Colorado, one prisoner must be moved to less-secure facility.

The article also said, "...parole board members struggled with hard decisions about which inmates could really be trusted to move into early release."

As we have recently learned, Gov. Quinn and his "rogue" Director of Corrections avoided that difficulty, when they cut loose some inmates early. And now the State is spending money rounding them back up and putting them away again.

In Colorado one inmate in a two-man cell was found murdered and "tucked into his blanket as though he was sleeping." They probably didn't need Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson to find his killer.