Adult Parole in Colorado: an Overview
| Jurisdiction | Colorado,United States |
| Citation | Vol. 44 No. 5 Pg. 37 |
| Pages | 37 |
| Publication year | 2015 |
Articles
Criminal Law
Adult Parole in Colorado: An Overview
By Patrick D. Butler
Criminal Law articles are sponsored by the CBA Criminal Law Section and generally are written by prosecutors, defense lawyers, and judges to provide information about case law, legislation, and advocacy affecting the prosecution, defense, and administration of criminal cases in Colorado state and federal courts.
Morris Hoffman, Judge for the Second Judicial District Court, Denver
About the Author
Patrick D. Butler is a District Court Judge for the 20th Judicial District.
This article discusses adult parole and the Colorado State Board of Parole.
This article is designed to give the reader a practical overview of the Colorado parole system and how it functions. For practitioners, it provides an understanding of how to determine when a client may be parole eligible and what steps an inmate can take to be a better candidate for parole when appearing in front of the Colorado State Board of Parole (Board).
The General Nature of Parole and its Statutory Bases "Parole" is a system of governmental supervision of convicted felons after they are released from the penitentiary. There are two kinds of parole—mandatory parole and discretionary parole—which are distinguished by whether the inmate has served his or her full sentence or has been released early.
Mandatory Parole
Every time a trial judge imposes a sentence for a class 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6 felony (that is, for every non-drug felony other than first-degree murder or first-degree kidnapping with bodily injury) or a level 2, 3, or 4 drug felony, the sentence must be accompanied by a statutorily mandated period of parole.[1] The felon must successfully complete that mandatory parole after he or she reaches the mandatory release date on his sentence and is released.[2]
The statutorily required mandatory parole periods are:
• class 3 felony: 5 years
• class 4 felony: 3 years
• class 5 felony: 2 years
• class 6 felony: 1 year
• drug felony 1 (DF1): 3 years
• drug felony 2 (DF2): 2 years
• drug felony 3 (DF3): 1 year
• drug felony 4 (DF4): 1 year.[3]
Discretionary Parole
The Board has the discretion to order inmates convicted of these same parole-eligible felonies released to parole before they reach their mandatory release date. The general rule is that to be eligible for parole, an inmate must have served at least 50% of his or her sentence, less earned time, although this so-called parole eligibility date (PED) can be extended by the executive director of the Department of Corrections or his designee for misconduct during incarceration.[4]
An important exception to this general rule for the calculation of the PED applies to offenders convicted of certain violent offenses. Any person convicted and sentenced for a class 2 or 3 felony consisting of second-degree murder, first-degree assault, first-degree kidnapping unless the first-degree kidnapping is a class 1 felony, first-degree arson, first-degree burglary, or aggravated robbery is not eligible for parole until after he or she has served 75% of the sentence imposed, less any earned time.[5] This bumping up of the PED to 75% also applies to persons convicted and sentenced on any of the laundry list of offenses that may be class 4 or 5 felonies, rather than class 2 or 3 felonies, if the offender has previously been convicted of a crime of violence as defined in CRS § 18-1.3-406.[6]
Determining an Inmate's PED
After taking 50% or 75% of the whole sentence, as the case may be, one must then subtract from that date all presentence credits and all good time and earned time credits, to reach the PED.
Good Time Credit
Every inmate confined in a correctional facility of the department who has committed no infraction of the rules or regulations of the department or the law of the state and who perform in a faithful, diligent, industrious, orderly, and peaceable manner the work, duties, and tasks assigned to him or her to the satisfaction of the executive director or any of his designees may be allowed time credit reductions as follows: A deduction of two months in each of the first two years, four months in each of the next two years, and five months in each of the remaining years of his or her term of confinement, and correspondingly for any part of the year if such term of confinement is for less than one year.[7]
Additional good time credit is permitted, not to exceed five days per month for each calendar year remaining to be served for either meritorious service by an inmate, or outstanding performance of assigned tasks in correctional industries.[8] Likewise, good time credit may be removed, even if accrued, if an inmate assaults any keeper, guard, foreman, officer, inmate, or other person; threatens or endangers the person or life of anyone; violates or disregards any departmental rule or regulation; neglects or refuses to do the work to which he is assigned; is guilty of any misconduct; or violates parole.[9]
Earned Time Credit
In addition to the good time authorized by CRS § 17-22.5-301, earned time, not to exceed thirty days for every six months of incarceration, may be deducted from the inmate's sentence on a demonstration to the department by the inmate that he has made substantial and consistent progress in each of the following categories:
1) work and training, including attendance, promptness, performance, cooperation, care of materials, and safety;
2) group living, including housekeeping, personal hygiene, cooperation, social adjustment, and double bunking;
3) participation in counseling sessions and involvement in self-help groups; and
4) progress toward the goals and programs established by the Colorado diagnostic program.
An inmate shall not be credited with more than one-half of allowable earned time for any six-month period or portion thereof unless such inmate was employed or was participating in institutional training or treatment programs provided by the department or was participating in some combination of such employment, training, or treatment programs.[10]
The Parole Board
The Board is a creature of statute, namely CRS § 17-2-201. That statute provides that there are to be seven members of the parole board, all appointed by the Governor and confirmed by the Colorado Senate. The members of the Board serve three-year terms and may serve consecutive terms if reappointed and re-confirmed.
Two members must have experience in law enforcement, one in supervising offenders, and the four others in "relevant fields." Each member must have five years of experience in his or her particular field, as well as
knowledge of parole laws and guidelines, rehabilitation, correctional administration, the functioning of the criminal justice system, issues associated with the victims of crime, the duties of parole board members, and actuarial risk assessment instruments and other offender instruments used by the board and the department of corrections.[11]
A board member cannot have been convicted of a felony and any felony conviction suffered during his or her term will automatically disqualify the member from further service.[12] The Board's main duty is to consider applications for discretionary parole; the statute expressly provides that it must meet frequently enough to enable it to consider all timely applications for discretionary parole.[13] The Board also has many other duties, including the duty to conduct hearings on parole revocations and to adopt rules, regulations, and policies governing its operations.[14]
How Inmates are Assessed for Release on Parole
The Board uses the Parole Board Release Guideline Instrument (PBRGI) to help provide a consistent framework for the Board to evaluate and weigh specific release decision factors and, based on a structured decision matrix, to offer an advisory release decision recommendation for parole applicants.[15] This instrument was developed to adhere to the mandate in CRS § 17-22.5-107(1) that requires the Board to "develop an administrative release guideline instrument for use by the Board in evaluating applications for parole" and to include "a matrix of advisory-release-decision recommendations for the different risk levels."
The PBRGI is a set of thirteen items that combine to create a matrix with two dimensions. The first dimension is risk of recidivism and the second dimension is readiness for parole. The Colorado Actuarial Risk Assessment Scale (CARAS) and the Level of Supervision Inventory-Revised (LSI-R) are among the data elements that serve as the basis for the risk and readiness information used in the matrix. The CARAS is an actuarial risk assessment instrument developed by the Division of Criminal Justice (DCJ) for use by the Board when making release decisions.[16] The CARAS is a nine-item risk scale that predicts t hree-year recidivism rates, defined as re-arrest for any crime or new court filing.[17] The CARAS instrument scores offender risk factors such as age, number of current conviction charges, and number of previous incarcerations. Offenders fall into one of five risk categories from very low to very high risk.
The LSI-R is a...
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