Colorado prosecutors want to increase the total number of beds in the state’s youth detention centers by 50% amid rising juvenile-related violent crime — a dramatic upswing in youth incarceration that has been met with fierce pushback from juvenile justice advocates.
The Colorado District Attorneys’ Council is working with a bipartisan pair of lawmakers in the Colorado legislature on a bill that would allow the state to hold 324 youth in pre-trial detention at any one time, up from the current cap of 215.
Prosecutors argue the state doesn’t have enough beds to house violent youth offenders awaiting trial. As a result, they say, authorities are forced to release teens who might otherwise be deemed a danger to the public in order to free up spots for someone else.
“We’re not meeting the moment to protect public safety or to provide intervention for juveniles who really need it,” said Rep. Shannon Bird, a Westminster Democrat and bill sponsor.
Critics counter that the Colorado Division of Youth Services, which oversees the state’s 14 youth detention and commitment facilities, already has youth that can be released — only there’s nowhere for them to go.
About one-quarter of young people are held past their release date — for an average of 22 additional days — because the state lacks available treatment beds and foster homes, according to the Limit the Detention of Juveniles annual report released by the state in July.
Nearly 8% of children and teens were held 30 days or more after the court ordered they could be released.
“We’re wholeheartedly opposed to (the 324) number,” said Anaya Robinson, a senior policy strategist with the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado. “We firmly believe if the state provides the services these kids need and deserve, the bed cap wouldn’t be a problem.”
Straining against the cap
Colorado used to detain hundreds of children and teenagers at any one time before the legislature in 2021 stepped in to mandate a far lower maximum.
In 2003, lawmakers first set a cap on the number of youths who could be detained statewide at 479. Over the intervening years, legislators gradually lowered that number to 215 beds.
“The bed cap forces counties to let youth out that shouldn’t be there,” said state Sen. Lindsey Daugherty, an Arvada Democrat who was the prime sponsor of the 2021 legislation that lowered the cap.
The Division of Youth Services last year pushed for an increase to 249 beds. Instead, lawmakers compromised by allowing an additional 22 temporary emergency beds that become available if the state reaches the 215 limit.
Gov. Jared Polis, in his proposed budget released this fall, asked for $1.7 million to increase the bed cap for youth detention.
“The increase in violent offenses by juveniles poses a statewide public safety challenge, as youth who have not been fully rehabilitated are more likely to recidivate upon release from youth services facilities, placing pressure on the current cap on youth detention beds,” the budget proposal reads. “This cap has an adverse impact on both community safety and on youths, who benefit from being located closer to home and to key services they rely on to avoid recidivating.”
The proposal requests to make permanent the 22 emergency beds and have those available as regular beds. The following year, the state would incorporate 15 flex beds — two in each detention facility — that are currently used for short-term detention. All told, the bed cap would settle at 254 — a move the Division of Youth Services director called a “realignment” rather than an increase.
“Having these three different buckets of beds is very ineffective,” Anders Jacobson, the division’s director, said in an interview Thursday.
Youth detention facilities saw a 13% increase last year in the average daily population — about 21 additional individuals per day, according to the division’s 2024 annual report. The 2,828 new detention admissions in 2023 marked a 23% increase from 2021, according to state figures.
Violent offenses continue to rise statewide. Forty-seven percent of new youth entering the state’s committed facilities were accused of violent offenses, up from 31% in 2019.
Still, the average number of children and teens in detention facilities statewide was 179, the annual report shows — far below the state’s 215 cap.
Certain judicial districts, though, went over their individual allotments for a significant portion of the year, according to the annual report. Some faced “acute overcapacity issues, affecting their operational efficiency and potentially compromising the quality of care and management.”
“Data reflects a need to revisit and adjust the detention bed caps,” the report suggested.
On both Oct. 22 and 23, 2023, the state reached its detention capacity, resulting in one emergency release.
Jacobson said the state rarely hits its 215-bed cap because judicial districts proactively keep space free to prepare in case there are more arrests that necessitate detention.
These capacity issues prompt agonizing decisions over which young person to release to free up a bed, prosecutors say.
Brian Mason, the district attorney for the 17th Judicial District, covering Adams and Broomfield counties, said all 18 of his bed slots are taken by young people who have been charged with violent offenses such as murder, attempted murder, aggravated robbery and sexual assault.
“These are truly violent kids who have committed violent offenses,” he said in an interview. “We are not locking up kids who commit petty offenses — it just doesn’t happen.”
In Boulder County, juvenile crimes of violence have increased 40% since 2020, while juvenile weapons offenses have jumped by 500% in the same time frame, District Attorney Michael Dougherty said.
“Having that static 215 (beds) makes it impossible to adjust to spikes in violent crime,” he said in an interview.
The bill, on its own, doesn’t solve every problem, said Bird, the Democratic lawmaker. Instead, she said, it’s part of a broader solution designed to keep kids and communities safe.
“We’re giving folks the easy out”
Juvenile justice advocates, though, say the state should be prioritizing and funding other resources to support young people in the community, rather than putting more youth in detention.
More behavioral health options, residential treatment beds and increased foster placements would ensure parents have the support they need to bring kids home when they should be coming home, said Robinson, the ACLU policy strategist.
He pointed to research that shows incarceration does not reduce delinquent behavior. Youth who are released from correctional confinement experience high rates of rearrest, new adjudications or convictions and re-incarceration.
“Increasing the bed count is not a push for future community safety,” Robinson said. “It’s a push for the opposite.”
Young people awaiting services and those held for a couple days while they wait for a court hearing don’t need to be in detention, said Katie Hecker, a youth justice attorney at the Colorado Office of the Child’s Representative, an independent state agency within the judicial branch charged with providing legal representation to children.
“I just question the necessity of raising the detention bed cap when we have other solutions, the consequences of which don’t fall on vulnerable children,” she said.
Daugherty, the Arvada lawmaker who sponsored the 2021 bill that lowered the cap, said she’s waiting for data to show that the state is consistently at or near bed capacity before she’s convinced the legislature needs to act.
She urged judicial districts to borrow bed capacity from less strained areas when they near capacity, rather than transporting youth to a detention center far from their family and support networks.
“Instead of looking at other solutions, we’re giving folks the easy out,” she said. ” ‘Let’s detain these kids because we have nowhere else to put them.’ ”
Jacobson, the Division of Youth Services director, said there should be equal pressure on both sides of the detention cap number, but that there should be at least 254 available beds in the state.
“You shouldn’t raise that cap number so high that it’s not realistic,” he said. “That lessens the pressure on the system to make sure you’re keeping an eye on every kid in detention. On the other side, you don’t want it to get so low you’re impacting judicial districts because you artificially made it too low. It’s a political hot potato.”
Statewide detention bed use, Jacobson said, “has come to a critical juncture and absolutely needs to be reviewed.”
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