A highly successful parole program that helped inmates serving decades-long sentences transition back to society -- and had the potential to save the Colorado Department of Corrections millions of dollars each year in reduced housing and medical care costs for geriatric prisoners -- has been scuttled without adequate explanation, say supporters of the program.
"First, it was on hold," says Habe Lawson, one of the volunteer mentors for the Long-Term Offender Program, or LTOP -- and, like many of the program's core group, an ex-con himself. "Then it was suspended. Then it was outright thrown away."
We first reported on the mysterious demise of LTOP a few weeks ago in "After Tom," a cover story examining events surrounding the 2013 murder of prison chief Tom Clements and the impact of his death on the reforms he'd launched. Clements had declared that reducing the DOC's overuse of solitary confinement was one of his top priorities, and his successor, Rick Raemisch, has made dramatic strides in bringing those numbers down. At the same time, some re-entry programs Clements had backed as promising ways to keep parolees from cycling back into prison seem to have been stalled or shelved, and LTOP is Exhibit A.
The innovative program was designed to identify longtime inmates who had demonstrated good behavior and posed little risk to public safety but were ill-prepared to return to a world that had changed radically during their decades behind bars. Candidates went through an elaborate selection process, were prepped for re-entry in a special unit at the Sterling prison, then assigned mentors on the street who had been through similar experiences and were eager to help. (The mentoring program was an exception to the usual "no association" rule that keeps parolees from receiving aid or advice from other parolees.)
