Join me in speaking against $3000 to recently released prisoners. A big thanks to Prez Fenberg and Rep Marshall for their stalwart (and costly!) defense of secret voting.
Join me in saying try again to the Colorado Dems who want to give $3000 to recently released prisoners.
Paying $3000 to recently released convicts? I think we could accomplish this goal in other ways and the $3000 is excessive (it's 3 mortgage payments for my little home).
SB24-012 (linked below along with its committee assignment), is a bill designed to up the amount of "gate money" given to recently-released convicts from $100 to $3000.
While I'm okay with the idea of gate money and a soft landing, I question whether this bill will save us enough extra money over the current amount to justify an order of magnitude increase in the bill we taxpayers will pay.
I am going to try and speak on this bill when it's before committee on Monday 1/29, but should I be unable, I prepared an open email and want to share with you.
It is below along with the links to the bill, the Senate Judiciary Committee (it's first stop on the 29th), and the article I reference in my letter which has the quote from sponsor Senator Coleman.
If you like keeping more of your own money, I urge you to read the bill and consider an email and/or testimony of your own. If my email is helpful in that regard, please use it.
An open email to the Senate Judiciary Committee and the sponsors of SB24 - 012
Hello to all,
My name is Cory Gaines.
I am a lifelong Colorado resident living now in Logan County on the Eastern Plains. I teach at the Junior College out here. I hope to be able to testify at the hearing remotely, but in case I'm unable I'm sending this email. If anyone finds any part of this useful, please feel free to read it into the record; it's an open letter after all.
Sterling is home to a large prison and its proximity to my school has allowed me the opportunity to teach more than one recently-released convict. Teaching people who are recently out and trying to rebuild their lives has also given me a perspective on SB24-012 that I'd like to share.
I am a big believer in second chances and opportunities for people who have made stupid and/or terrible decisions to earn their way back into society. I have taught more than one student who has chosen to reach out to grab the hand offered them, work hard, and succeed (in a particularly memorable case that I often cite to my classes, this includes a gentleman who earned the highest grade of all the students in my class despite not having had a math class for decades).
Still, I find that this bill misses the mark, and for several reasons. I don't know that it will offer the outcome it is intended to produce. I don't know that it will save enough money to justify it. I also feel that the large sum of money offered places an undue burden on taxpaying families, particularly galling when there are other ways to achieve this same goal without taking money from my family and others.
Colorado currently offers $100 in so-called gate money to people released from prison. I think this is an acknowledgement that, by what I can find in researching, the first 72 hours post-release are some of the most predictive in terms of when a former prisoner will re-offend. I am a big fan in my life (and in policy) of paying upfront to forestall a problem later, but I seriously question whether so much more money will help. Certainly, due to policy and inflation in this state, $100 doesn't go as far as it used to. Is it reasonable to expect that a full thirty times that amount will have thirty times the effect of the current amount? That's shaky reasoning.
Further, quoting Senator Coleman from a January 20th CBS article, "'It costs about $50,000 a year to incarcerate one individual in the prison behind me. If we're able to give them $3,000 to support them to get back on their feet, then that's $47,000 that we're saving,' said Coleman. And he says data shows it works. 'If you look across the country where programs like this exist, make it possible for them to have a 90% transition back into the workforce when they get out of prison,' said Coleman."
I'm not accusing Senator Coleman of being dishonest, but I'd like to see that data, and so should you.
You see, so much depends on what is measured and how it's measured. Let me give you a couple examples. In following up on something I read in an op ed about Denver's Supportive Housing Social Impact Bond, I found that contrary to the claims of the author, the social impact bond didn't save money, it simply moved it around. I can't help but imagine too that if we did dig into any studies on this topic (I couldn't find any on the internet to reference), we'd find that what they tell us is not that paying helps "fix" people, but rather that people who have fixed themselves do better with support. Said another way, we'd find that people who were already rolling in the right direction roll even better when they're nudged.
Perhaps we have another way of accomplishing this same goal. Perhaps we could look to other states where some amount of money that a prisoner earns while incarcerated is saved for his or her release. Perhaps we could look to other states where families can contribute to gate money for their loved ones. Perhaps we help fund groups that support those who have made the decision to change their lives.
And perhaps, we could look at offering something less than $3000 a head. I want to put that number in perspective for those reading. $3000 is about 3 mortgage payments for me. It's about 100 tanks of gas for my little Geo. It's about 17 weeks of groceries for my family. I say these numbers to put the $3000 in perspective, and to remind you that when the government gives money to someone, they do so only by taking from someone else; the $3000 you give to someone leaving prison is taken from families like mine, leaving us less to put to our own needs and wants.
If the $100 gate money is inadequate in today's economy, $3000 is excessive.
I urge you to vote no to the bill in its current form.
Thank you,
C
https://www.cbsnews.com/colorado/news/proposed-bill-colorado-give-people-leaving-prison-3000-dollars-restart-life/
https://leg.colorado.gov/bills/sb24-012
https://leg.colorado.gov/committees/judiciary/2024-regular-session
Thank you President Fenberg for your stalwart defense of your secret voting system which resulted in a huge bill we taxpayers get to pay.
I've posted before about how Democrat lawmakers at the Capitol have been using their secret quadratic voting system for a while now (I don't agree with their politics here but I do have to commend KUNC for their excellent reporting on this topic, Mr. Franz has been dogged and done good work).
The Democrats held on to this system long enough that someone sued, and thus they had to hire defense attorneys.
At taxpayer expense.
The bill is in thanks to a CORA request by Mr. Franz and it's a whopper.** At least $54000.
This is split among two different firms, and likely a bigger bill, because Rep Marshall felt there was conflict of interest enough that he needed separate counsel. Separate much more expensive counsel.
I'll leave it to you to read up on the details if you'd like (including Rep Marshall's justification of needing separate counsel and his bragging about winning his case) in the linked article below, but in the meantime, let us taxpayers be sure to thank President Fenberg and Rep Marshall for holding on so tightly to this system that we are stuck holding a huge bill.
**As an aside, wouldn't you like to be a high-powered attorney such that you could bill your time at $250 an hour? I'm in the wrong business.
https://www.kunc.org/news/2024-01-18/colorado-lawmakers-legal-defense-of-secret-ballot-system-cost-at-least-54k?fbclid=IwAR1IoX8yITg4VhfpoVHnJUQpq7OtgvwYl5aSfNnbbYr6W049VmHK2CKQDb8