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UP TO THE MINUTE is a production of Colorado Radio for Justice (CRJ). It's a weekly snapshot of what’s happening, and what’s on the horizon, in the criminal-legal system in Colorado and beyond, hosted by CRJ's team of system-impacted podcast hosts. CRJ's featured guests / contributors on the show are staff from the Colorado Criminal Justice Reform Coalition (CCJRC). www.radioforjustice.org
[00:01:00]
Welcome. I'm Trevor Jones with the Colorado Radio for Justice, and this is Up to the Minute. We are here this morning at the office of the Colorado Criminal Justice Reform Coalition, also known as [00:02:00] the CCJRC, and we would like to do a follow-up interview with the CCJRC regarding Proposition which is on the ballot for this November.
Trevor Jones: Uh, I'm here this morning with Kyle Giddings of the CCJRC. Good morning, Kyle.
Kyle Giddings: Good morning.
Trevor Jones: And Kyle, would you briefly tell us who you are and what you do with the CCJRC?
Kyle Giddings: my name's Kyle Giddings. I'm the deputy director at the Colorado Criminal Justice Reform Coalition. We do policy work at the Capitol to do sentencing reform, prison reform, create opportunities for grant funding for re-entry work and victim services, as well as, uh, like, preventative, uh, services to stop people from even ending up in prison.
Um, we do everything, uh, that's connected to the criminal justice system, including advocating for restoration of voting rights, um, and creating opportunities for people to access the ballot in places like county jails while they're incarcerated.
Trevor Jones: That was wonderful. People need their rights, and-
Kyle Giddings: That's right.
Everyone deserves the right to the ballot ...
Trevor Jones: need their voice heard, [00:03:00] absolutely. Yep. Uh, so, uh, real quick, what is the C- CCJRC, and how long have you guys been around?
Kyle Giddings: Yeah. So we are a nonprofit. We've been around since 1999. Uh, we came into existence in response to the unprecedented growth in the prison population and the building of prisons while defunding things like K-12 education, healthcare, and other things across the state.
Um, we ran the first prison moratorium bill in the country in 1999, and it failed miserably. It was, Colorado was a very different time. But it started this whole movement that has led us to where we are today, where the work of CCJRC has helped lead to the closure of seven prisons across the state and decreasing the population, um, and, uh, moving hundreds of millions of dollars now out of the Department of Corrections and Parole budgets and back into community.
Trevor Jones: what were some of the factors that led to Colorado having so many prisons when CCJRC first started?
Kyle Giddings: Yeah. There's actually a very simple reason why all the [00:04:00] prisons started blowing up in population, and that was because of a bill passed in the '80s called the Mielke Bill.
And the Mielke Bill, um, doubled felony sentences, uh, overnight for everything. And so it was being pitched as a thing that would not affect the criminal justice system that much, um, and that it wouldn't affect the prison population that much. Uh, obviously did. Um, and the prison population, uh, went from in the low thousands to 22,000 in, within, uh, 20 years.
Trevor Jones: And that's what led to this huge prison expansion. so on that, uh, it was essentially an unintended consequence of the Mielke, uh, that the prisons would flood?
Kyle Giddings: Uh, unintended is a strong word. I think they knew what it was gonna do.
It was, you know, this bill passed during the tough-on-crime era, but it was just being pitched to the legislators as, " Oh, it's not gonna have [00:05:00] that big of an impact. We're just making sure people are being held accountable for their crimes," and da, da, da, da, da. And it just blew up. That's the reason why we have private prisons in Colorado right now, is because of the Mielke Bill Um, and it, it created a situation where we were having to ship people out of state.
Nebraska and Texas, and people were being doubled and tripled bunked in their cells. It was a really bad time here in the state.
Trevor Jones: ballot initiatives and other, uh, things on our ballot this year could have similar consequences. Uh, this morning I would like, like to continue our conversation about Prop 132. Uh, we spoke with the CCJRC about a month ago with, uh, a bit of an introduction, kind of a just the facts- Mm-hmm
discussion. Today, I would like to get a little bit more into, um, what is the CCJRC's position on the Prop, and, uh, why do you guys think the way you do about it? Um, before we do all that, could you give us a refresher on Prop 132 and- Yeah ... kind of what, what's intended with it?
Kyle Giddings: Yeah. Prop 132 is a private prison cash grab, uh, being disguised as a public safety [00:06:00] solution.
on your ballot, it'll be called Penalties Related to Fentanyl Crimes. Um, and what it does is it completely rewrites the possession, distribution, manufacturing, and sharing transfer laws in Colorado around fentanyl. So it will make all possession of fentanyl a felony. Um, right now, you have to possess more than a gram to get that felony level.
Below that is a misdemeanor level. Um, but if you possess any amount under Prop 132, you'll be facing a felony, uh, conviction. Um, they create a mandated treatment level, um, a, a drug felony four, which if you complete treatment, you would be able to get a wobbler down to a, uh, misdemeanor. Um, except for this proposition doesn't fund treatment.
Colorado ranks 46th in the nation for access to treatment, and treatment's incredibly expensive. So, uh, it's pretty much setting people up for failure. Um, and then [00:07:00] it also rewrites, uh, the DF1 level laws to, m- uh, right now there's all these cut points. So if you're, uh, distributing, like, large amounts, you're facing large sentences, eight to 32 y- years.
It makes any amount of fentanyl transfer, which is sharing, so two people simply sharing drugs or, um, distributing drugs or anything, s- any amount of it with fentanyl, uh, you'd be facing eight to 32 years. But the biggest thing in that is the sharing part. Uh, the fact that two people who are, um, simply sharing drugs or a kid at a party experimenting with drugs.
And it eliminates the unknowingly clause. Right now in Colorado law, you have to knowingly possess fentanyl to be able to be charged with that higher level, uh, felony charge. Because fentanyl is in so much of the illicit drug supply that it's incredibly difficult to figure out who knew what. A lot of people we're seeing across this country are going and buying one thing, and it turns out it has [00:08:00] fentanyl in it from cross-contamination or just malice from the manufacturers, um, of the drugs.
And so under Prop 132, you don't even need to know you're possessing, um, fentanyl. And so two kids at a party experimenting with something they didn't think was fentanyl, um, that turns out it did have fentanyl in it, would be facing a mandatory minimum of eight to 32 years in prison. No money exchanged, no intent to deal, just simply sharing, eight to 32 years.
Um, it also rewrites all the Good Samaritan laws. So right now, if, um, you stay with someone who is overdosing and help them get help, uh, you have, uh, a criminal, uh, immunity, uh, for many of the situations. Um, but under Prop 132, it rewrites it to where if you are sharing drugs with someone and they start overdosing and you are in that DF one, the drug felony one level of charges [00:09:00] You will still have criminal liability of some sort.
it goes against what we know works when it helps, comes to saving people's lives.
we just got a, a research paper back that, um, showed that the criminal penalties and these other factors within Prop 132 will increase overdoses by 41% in the first five years, which is about 1,700 folks.
This is a peer review study done by, uh, scientists here in Colorado, um, that take the criminal penalty aspect and see how that affects overdoses. So 41% increase, uh, absolutely devastating
Trevor Jones: There's a lot to unpack with everything you've just said. Yeah. Um, one thing I do wanna touch on is you mentioned that Colorado is 46th in the country in, uh, funding treatment.
Kyle Giddings: Mm-hmm.
Trevor Jones: That's a kind of a shocking number because I think here in Colorado, we think that we, uh, approach things from a, a bit of a more progressive, uh, [00:10:00] mindset. Uh, we use science and the things that, uh, we, we believe or we know to work. Mm-hmm. Um, but we're, we're not funding that, and we're being asked by, uh, the backers of Prop 132 to instead throw money towards, uh, penalizing fentanyl use and possession.
what is the potential cost economically for Prop 132 to pass?
Kyle Giddings: Yeah. Uh, the nonpartisan legislative council has estimated that it will cost nearly $433 million in just the first five years, because it will be sending 900 people a year after that fifth year fully being implemented, uh, to prison, and that's a new prison every year pretty much.
And so $433 million purely for prison construction, prison leasing, as well as, uh, incarceration costs. It costs $68,000 a year to incarcerate a perfectly healthy person for one year in Colorado, while we're spending, [00:11:00] I think it's like $18,000 for each student in our public education system. They're dramatically different numbers.
Um, maybe we should rethink where we're putting our money is what I'm gonna say to that. But yeah, Prop 132 doesn't fund treatment, like not a single dollar of that $433 million will go to access to treatment, will go to expanding treatment or helping people pay for treatment. And like you said, it is a little wild to think Colorado ranks so low when we tend to have these like more progressive ideas on, um, drug treatment and getting people access versus incarceration.
but we have this thing called TABOR that, uh, really restricts how our budget works. And after H.R.1, uh, which is the big beautiful bill passed at the federal level, came down, we had a billion-dollar hole in our budget last year. Um, and lots of states had holes in their budget, but ours was specifically worse because of H.R.1.
And a lot of Colorado's tax laws are tied to the federal tax laws. And so when they cut all these [00:12:00] taxes, suddenly we have this giant hole. Um, and so it created a situation where last year alone, we had to cut $108 million from substance use treatment. Prop 132 is just gonna make that situation worse.
In-patient care is incredibly expensive, and most insurances don't even cover it. And so it puts this huge financial burden on individuals who are struggling with addiction to be able to actually succeed in their criminal proceedings and be able to avoid having felony convictions on their record.
Trevor Jones: obviously we're gonna be paying for the drug problem in our country and in our state one way or another, whether we fund treatment, whether we fund incarceration.
Uh, is there any support behind the idea that incarceration, uh, tends to assist people coming off of, uh, any addiction, drug addiction, um, or, uh,
does it mitigate the, the sociological problem?
Kyle Giddings: people actually leaving prison have a, a nearly 300% more chance of overdosing within the first year of leaving [00:13:00] prison because, um, of their decrease in tolerance, as well as the fact that the drug supply's changed a lot while they were out. Um, and also, if incarcerating people worked on dealing with the drug crisis, we would not have a drug crisis right now because of what happened in the '80s and '90s during the war on drugs.
We were told over and over again, if we just incarcerate, go after the big fishes, do all this, that we would be able to solve the drug crisis. Um, and that didn't happen. Instead, we just incarcerated, destroyed families for low-level use or low-level dealing even, like small, small, small amounts. Um, almost no big fish were caught during the war on drugs.
What filled the federal prison system and the local state prison system were low-level users, and it blew up the prison population on the federal level and on the local level, um, and didn't do anything destroys-- besides destroy families. And when we do [00:14:00] things like criminalize very specific drugs and criminalize, um, increase crazy penalties on certain aspects of drugs, uh, we see the drug supply get more potent and mo- more deadly because peoples try to, like, walk away from it, and, like, uh, dealers, local dealers get caught up, and then the actual big fish come in and replace that oth- the local dealer in a heartbeat.
Um, and they create more potent drugs that are cheaper and easier to access. They can manufacture them almost anywhere. Like, fentanyl is a synthetic opioid. It isn't a organically grown one. Um, and it, it's coming through our ports, uh, mainly, uh, from China and outside of this country. Um, and yeah. So when we decrease access to treatment, increase prison populations in response to the drug crisis, it is just a recipe for disaster.
Trevor Jones: I definitely recall in [00:15:00] the '90s the, uh, mass incarceration movement and how many people were locked up. And, uh, just from my own experience, and I'm sure the statistics would align with that, uh, there was no, uh, no limit in the amount or access to drugs or in people who were using it. Yeah.
Kyle Giddings: Yeah.
Trevor Jones: So just anecdotal evidence, uh, what I saw from the war on drugs wasn't helping anyone- No
with anything. Uh,
does this, does Proposition 132 feel like a little bit of a, um You know, kind of a turn back to the efforts that were made in the '80s and '90s with the war on drugs?
Kyle Giddings: I think Prop 132 is an attempt to fool voters, um, to make them think, "Hey, we're gonna do something to actually deal with this drug crisis.
Hey, we're actually gonna do that." Um, but it doesn't do that. And, you know, our current governor candidate, Phil Weiser, actually put it best. He said Prop 132 is a step backwards, not forward, in dealing with the drug crisis. Um, if we're not funding access to treatment and getting people plugged in to treatment, it is a huge step backwards, [00:16:00] um, and does nothing but, uh, put us back to where we were in the '80s and '90s.
Prop 132, if it passes, would make Colorado have the most stringent drug laws on fentanyl in the country. It-- They would be worse than Texas'. They would be worse than, um, Alabama, Louisiana, uh, lots of, like, what people consider to be tough on crime states. We would have tougher laws than all of them. Um, and places like Texas are, like, deciding to go a different direction and have more of a treatment first response to the drug crisis.
it's important that we, like, invest in what we know what works, which is investing in community-based resources to help people in their community, especially in places like rural Colorado, gain access to treatment. Um, when we do that, we see decreases in drug overdose deaths. We see decreases, like, uh, in incarceration And so it's important that we invest in those areas, [00:17:00] not more prison beds.
And we know the people behind Prop 132 are funded partially by the private prison orgs, uh, GEO to be specific. The people listening might know GEO specifically for their immigration detention centers here in Colorado. They also own several of the closed prisons that are here in Colorado right now.
Um, and so when we look at everything that's on the table, see who's funding Advance Colorado, looking at Advance Colorado's, uh, track record on criminal justice, um, and seeing what they're proposing, it's pretty easy to conclude that it's not people with addictions' best interest that they have at the forefront.
It is special interest groups, corporations, and pushing forward an agenda that we know doesn't work.
Trevor Jones: You mentioned, uh, Colorado Access and the GEO Group. Are these the ones who are backing or, or behind and supporting Prop 132?
Kyle Giddings: the problem we have is, uh, Advance Colorado's a dark money group, and so it is very hard to track their donors.
[00:18:00] Like, they actually haven't said they spent any money on Prop 132, which we know is not true 'cause they spent, uh, at least a million dollars getting it on the ballot, and they have been skirting around campaign finance laws to avoid reporting it. So we have to look at the tax records we do have available, and we know that, uh, private prisons donate to them.
Um, and so there's no way, and we won't know until well after the election who exactly funded it, so we have to reach the conclusions based off who's funding them based off the data we do have. And it's oil and gas, and Advance Colorado has eight ballot measures this year, everything from the right to natural gas.
They get money from oil and gas. Uh, they're running a, a ballot measure like Prop 132 that will definitely increase the private prison population and expand there because the Department of Corrections is at capacity, and the only place the state is exploring to be able to expand access is in the private prison system right now.
And so there's that. [00:19:00] Uh, they get money from some very dark money anti-democracy, uh, funders from across the nation, so they're running, uh, voter ID ballot measures requiring Social Security numbers on the back of mail-in ballots. And so i- it's very easy to look at who we know is funding, um, Advance Colorado and make some pretty easy conclusions on what their agenda is and who's funding it.
Trevor Jones: It's a kind of a frightening scenario that, uh, you know, corporations and even private prisons can have such a direct influence on our, uh, ballot and on the decisions that the, uh, individual voter makes. Uh, as an individual voter, uh, wanting to be informed on the issues, uh, I would like to know as much as I can about who's on the ballot and what are the propositions and the other initiatives being forwarded.
What can I do to, uh, educate myself for these things?
Kyle Giddings: there's a couple things you can do. Uh, there's always the blue book, which every voter is mailed, um, which goes over, uh, what the proposition does. Um, it gives you pro and [00:20:00] con. It gives you a little bit of the information on the fiscal impact, not all of the information.
You get just a little bit though. Um, and then what I always tell my friends to do is l- look and talk to your community, and also look to organizations that you trust. If you care really a lot about reproductive healthcare and having access to that, where is Planned Parenthood on this issue? Where is Cobalt on this issue?
Um, a lot of organizations put out voter guides, so looking for those voter guides. CCJRC will be putting out a voter guide so people can, uh, take a look at the ballot measures that... and where we stand on them and, and we will do our best to explain what they actually do. Like, there's one ballot measure that is about the right to hunt and fish.
Um, reads pretty plainly and pretty straightforward, but what it does, it actually opens our public lands to corporate interests. And so it allows for, uh, like logging and massive hunting, uh, corporations to come in and do awful things to our public lands, [00:21:00] and also potentially open our public lands for like oil and gas work being done on it, which is awful.
Um, also from Advance Colorado, by the way.they're behind eight of the 14 ballot measures that'll be on the ballot this year. Eight. One org. I was talking with some friends last night, and all of them confirmed with me that there's never been so many ballot measures from one organization.
we are just so dependent on community and making sure that we are having conversations with our neighbors about what do you feel about this? And then also go to the different orgs websites. So go find yes on Prop 132 and no on 132, and look at their coalition. See if it aligns with your values, because, you know, we have on the no side a crazy vast, um, group of folks, uh, from all different spectrums.
We have Republicans and Democrats signed on to the no campaign. We have a mixture of a, [00:22:00] uh, now 13 different sheriffs and DAs who are all opposed to Prop 132 because it makes no sense. This is not how we should be doing it. Um, including, um, the DA from Larimer County, McGoffin, who prosecutes more drug-induced homicides than anyone in the state, and he's coming out in opposition to this ballot measure because he says it will make his life so much harder to actually go after high-level drug dealers, because it's gonna clog up the system full of kids and low-level users, and he's like, "That's not where we should be spending our time."
If we want to solve the drug crisis, he believes we need to go after the high-level drug dealers, and he's like, "This, this isn't gonna let me do that."
Trevor Jones: are there any other groups that have come out and, uh, spoken that they are against Prop 132?
Kyle Giddings: Yeah. Um, so we have a, a lot of medical associations, too. The Association of Family Doctors, uh, the Colorado Psychiatric Association, Colorado Providers Association, um, uh, the Colorado Coalition for the [00:23:00] Homeless, a whole wide variety of people who work in public health as well, uh, Senator Michael Bennet and Representative Brittany Pettersen.
Um, there is a bunch of civic engagement folks, so everyone from COLOR, which works with Latino communities, um, to, um, the C3 Roundtable, the League of Women Voters. Like, we have a huge coalition of organizations and electeds, over 150 electeds from across the state, Republican and Democrat, sheriffs, DAs, uh, progressives, moderates, Republicans,
people are starting to see through what Advance Colorado is trying to do. And the fact that we're getting Republican sheriffs to be like, "This makes no sense," is a really big deal. And the Medical Association standing behind us. Uh, Planned Parenthood just signed on.
Um, so we just, it's a vast swath of folks who are saying no to 132.
Trevor Jones: So do your diligence, get with groups that you can trust. Uh, do your research. Uh, check out the [00:24:00] CCJRC's- Yep ... voting guide. Uh, read your Blue Book. Read your Blue Book. Get with the other org- organizations you trust, talk to your people. Uh, I feel like I get pretty well informed on most of the things that way.
Uh, so I just have to actually do my own homework, right?
Kyle Giddings: Yeah.
Trevor Jones: to wrap up a little bit, is there anything else that the CCJRC would like us to know about fentanyl, the fentanyl measure, Advance Colorado, any of these matters?
Kyle Giddings: Yeah, I, I would say two things. Uh, one, our democracy is in a really scary spot right now, and it's very difficult to look out there and look at everything that's happening on the federal level, and even a lot of things that are happening on the local level, and, um, feel like, "Why do I vote?
Uh, what, like what is my vote gonna do?" Uh, let me tell you, Col- there were several races in Colorado last year that were only determined by a handful of votes. One of them was literally three votes determined a race. Um, in CD8, it was 2,000 votes out of an entire congressional district that decided who was gonna go represent us in [00:25:00] Congress.
Um, in 2024, Prop 130 only won by two points. That's an average of about 100 votes per precinct in the state. And so every vote counts. And while mail-in ballots are being attacked by the federal government right now, I would encourage people to, uh, still vote. Take your ballot, fill it out, and go drop it off at your, uh, local drop-off box.
Ev- they're everywhere. They're at your town hall, they're at your police stations, they're at outside of libraries. Like, there's drop-off, drop-off boxes in the metro area and in even rural Colorado everywhere. Take your ballot, go drop it off. Avoid the UPS. Just, just go drop it off. Um, and It's important that we talk with our neighbors.
Like, I would encourage everyone to go talk to five friends about Prop 132 and tell them, "Hey, Prop 132 is not what it looks like. It is funded by an org that , gets money from private prisons,They didn't talk to the DAs, they didn't talk to the medical community, they didn't talk to advocates around this issue.[00:26:00]
They just wrote something and put it on the ballot, um, without doing any stakeholdering." And it's important that people know who's behind these ballot measures. And so go talk to your neighbors. Tell them that incarceration doesn't work versus treatment, and urge them to vote no on 132. CCJRC is officially in a no position, and we will be telling everyone until, uh, seven o'clock on November s- uh, 3rd to, uh, vote no.
Trevor Jones: Wonderful. Kyle, you're always best. So much good information. I appreciate your time this morning. Uh, we will be following up with you on other measures, I'm sure, and thank you for always allowing us into your space to get this information.
Kyle Giddings: It's good to have you here.
Trevor Jones: Thank you.
Kyle Giddings: [00:27:00]