Protect SB21-062 from false claims

The background

SB21-062, Jail Population Management Tools is a bill that is currently making its way through the Colorado senate that seeks to reduce jail populations while protecting public safety. It would limit arrests in lieu of summons for low level crimes, and reduce the use of cash bail and pretrial detention. It would give law enforcement officers a wide discretion to arrest and hold people who either pose a safety threat or are at risk of continued criminal conduct.

SB21-62 allows arrests for any felony or victim offense, including auto theft, whenever there is a safety risk or risk of repeated violations. The bill places no limitations on arrests for violent felonies or domestic violence. Judges can set money bonds in any case where there’s a safety or a flight risk. It is a modest, data-driven, carefully-crafted measure that is the result of an intensive eight month collaborative stakeholder process with law enforcement and victim advocacy groups. Not a single victim organization expresses opposition to the bill in its current form; one has endorsed the bill, and many crime survivors have testified in strong support.

What’s happening?

The primary opposition to SB21-062 is a group of Colorado police department chiefs and a sheriff who released a joint statement that they have been widely circulating: “Chiefs and Sheriff Oppose SB21-062.”

This statement is riddled with inaccurate and false information, to the point where it seems that the signatories did not take the time to read the bill.

The dissemination of this verifiably erroneous information on official municipal channels (websites and social media accounts) is a violation of the public trust, and an embarrassment not only to those police and sheriff departments, but the city governments they represent. We present the Chiefs and Sheriff’s statement, followed by a factual correction to each false assertion that is made here.

We ask residents of these cities to contact their elected city leaders and demand that this fallacious and inflammatory statement be removed from all official city channels immediately.

Whether you support or oppose SB21-062, we can all agree that the bill should be debated on its actual merits, and further that city governments have a responsibility to ensure that information shared on their official channels is factual, and not political propaganda designed to incite public fear.