RT NewsAn audit of the Colorado Department of Corrections has revealed that hundreds of inmates have been given incorrect prison sentences, meaning some freshly released parolees will be forced back behind bars while others have been incarcerated for too long.
Though only a fraction of the audit has been completed, the examination has already found “serious questions” in the sentences of some 349 convicts, according to the Denver Post. Judges have amended 56 of those errors and are in the process of clearing the rest.
Some of the sentences are erroneous because a judicial clerk gave an incorrect statement to the corrections department, while in other instances prison officials misread the documents. State officials will try to correct their mistakes by returning the wrongfully released to prison and springing others immediately.
The audit is not expected to be complete until July, although state officials have identified 8,415 prisoners whose sentences need to be examined. Of that total, 2,500 are expected to warrant a close inspection.
If the current rate continues, more than 1,000 individuals will be victims of “serious” sentencing errors.
“I think it would be logical to be concerned,” Roger Werholtz, the interim executive director of the Colorado Department of Corrections, told the Post. “Here’s the reality: Sentencing laws are so complex, it is not unusual to find errors in how sentences are communicated from courts to the state.”
Werhotlz is currently serving as interim executive director because his predecessor Tom Clements was murdered at his own front door.
Evan Ebel, the man suspected of the crime, was an alleged white supremacist who was killed in a shootout with Texas police. He was known to have assaulted a prison guard in 2006. Ebel did not serve any time for the assault because a clerical error changed the time served order from “consecutive” to “concurrent.”
He was released from Fremont Correctional facility four years earlier than his actual intended release date.
Colorado governor John Hickenlooper, who was coincidentally friends with Ebel’s father, ordered the audit in response to Clements’ murder.
http://rt.com/usa/colorado-auditing-prison-misapplied-sentences-288/
Several months ago the Federal Government signed a contract with Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) in which the Government guaranteed that all CCA controlled prisons would be filled to a minimum of 95% capacity. It is possible that this deal has been in force for many years which is why so many innocent people are sent to prison on false charges and given extremely long sentences for minor crimes such as marijuana possession. The problem here is that many CCA controlled prisons have manufacturing done by the inmates which provides massive profits for CCA and the politicians are receiving payoffs to ensure that this practice can continue indefinitely. Now with the NDAA, CCA will have the potential to put millions of people behind bars with no charges, no trial for free labor in their manufacturing of products by their inmates. Is this what a real free country does to it’s people?
A few months back a Colorado prison warden answered his doorbell at home one evening and was shot dead. Could that have been retribution for this kind of wrong? Convicts may take some kind of perverse pride in being able to take a properly handed down sentence like a man, but keeping them in for longer than that is likely to place prosecution and prison officials’ lives at risk.
This country has the largest prison population in the world. If all those incarcerated for victimless crimes (especially drug offenses) were released, they (the prisons) would be virtually empty.