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| Colo. prisons could be running out of room for most-dangerous inmates |
| By denverpost.com - Kirk Mitchel |
| Published: 12/27/2013 |
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The high-security prison where Colorado keeps gang shot-callers and inmates who kill correctional officers may soon be marked obsolete for all inmates by federal court because it offers no outdoor recreation. Colorado Department of Corrections officials are now scrambling to find a solution to the problem just one year after shuttering its newest high-security prison. Rick Raemisch, the department's executive director, declined to name three specific options he says are now under consideration to solve the recreation problem at Colorado State Penitentiary in Cañon City, citing pending litigation. Asked whether reopening Colorado State Penitentiary II, the high-security prison that was opened in 2010 and was closed two years later, is one of the possible solutions, Raemisch said his staff is looking at virtually all options. "I have kind of the old Marine Corps philosophy that everything we have gets used," Raemisch said. However, reopening the $208 million prison may not address the recreation issue for solitary-confinement inmates because it, like CSP, was built without outdoor recreation facilities, according to a DOC official in a recent deposition, said attorney Amy Robertson of the Civil Rights Education and Enforcement Center. The gravity of the problem DOC faces is underlined by a 2012 decision by U.S. District Judge R. Brooke Jackson. He ruled that CSP violates the Eighth Amendment prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment by not providing outdoor recreation. His decision came in a case filed by DU's law clinic on behalf of former CSP inmate Troy Anderson. Read More. |
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