If only the Democratic majority at the State Capitol worried as much about the offenders roaming our streets as it does about those who are behind bars. Colorado’s offender-friendly legislature seems oblivious to the former and convinced there are too many of the latter.

The progressive fringe among ruling Democrats often appears unfazed by headlines about horrendous crimes committed by recently released convicts out on parole, or by suspects who, despite lengthy criminal records, were released on their own recognizance before trial.

To the current crop of lawmakers bent on reinventing Colorado’s criminal code, injustice isn’t a porous system that lets criminals back out on the streets too soon; rather, it’s a system that actually incarcerates wrongdoers at all.

They can’t publicly admit to any of that in so many words, of course. So, they claim to worry about the “costs of incarceration” or about the presumed failure of prisons to rehabilitate inmates “who are going to return to our communities at some point.”

Hence, Senate Bill 26-036. Its innocuous title, “Concerning increasing operational efficiency of existing prison population management measures,” belies its goal — setting more convicts free. Rest assured, concerns about “operational efficiency” have little to do with it.

As reported this week by our news affiliate Colorado Politics, the bill’s provisions include transitioning inmates out of community corrections “halfway houses”; considering “alternate sanctions” for technical parole violations, and giving inmates more “earned time” toward early release.

“Earned time”? It used to be awarded to inmates for exemplary behavior. It has become little more than a routine handout for prisoners who simply don’t break the rules — allowing them to shave time off their sentences.

“Technical” parole violations? They are often leading indicators that parolees aren’t ready to lead law-abiding lives.

And halfway houses, even if overbooked, probably should be sending more of their residents back up the river to prison — rather than downstream to communities, likely to return to lives of crime and addiction on the streets.

On its face, SB26-036 tinkers with a lot of technical details in current state law, like the “Prison Population Management Measures” implemented by legislation in 2018. Those measures — which kick in when the state’s prison vacancies fall below a certain level — include steps making it easier to parole inmates.

Yet, the sponsors of the current legislation — Sens. Julie Gonzales, D-Denver, Mike Weissman, D-Aurora, Assistant Majority Leader Jennifer Bacon, D-Denver, and Rep. Yara Zokaie, D-Fort Collins — feel the measures don’t go far enough. According to their bill’s legislative declaration, the current effort, “has not made an impact on prison overcrowding in Colorado.”

So, they want to make it even easier to get out of prison before a sentence is up.

That’s all the more alarming considering how easy it has been to begin with. As 23rd Judicial District Attorney George Brauchler has pointed out in his column in The Gazette, for years, even violent felons commonly have served as little as half their sentence due to earned time and other lenient policies.

In 2024, Colorado voters had had enough. They bypassed the legislature and overwhelmingly approved Proposition 128 on the statewide ballot. It required offenders convicted of some violent crimes to serve at least 85% of their sentence before being paroled. Offenders with two prior violent crime convictions now must serve their full sentence.

In the guise of “operational effieciency,” SB26-036 amounts to a roundabout attempt to circumvent — and undermine — the voters’ will in Prop. 128. 

It’s not too early to urge Gov. Jared Polis to prepare his veto pen. He will if he prioritizes public safety above easy parole.