Two months before a Denver judge confirmed constitutional violations inside Colorado’s prisons, the federal government opened an investigation into the same system. Disability advocates had spent years asking for exactly that. The investigation arrived only after the Trump administration picked a public fight with Governor Polis over a single inmate.
On December 8, the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division sent a letter to Polis announcing a civil investigation into all 21 Colorado Department of Corrections facilities. The probe also covers 12 Division of Youth Services centers. Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon signed the letter, directing investigators to examine inadequate medical care, unsafe conditions, excessive force against juveniles, and whether housing transgender inmates in female units violated religious freedom.
The announcement landed the same day a federal appeals court denied the release of former Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters, who is serving nine years for election-related felonies. Two weeks earlier, Colorado had rejected a Bureau of Prisons request to transfer Peters to federal custody.
Four days after the investigation announcement, Trump issued a federal pardon for Peters’ state conviction — a power he does not hold. Dhillon retweeted social media posts connecting her own probe to the effort to free Peters. Civil rights attorney David Lane, who has sued CDOC for decades, called it payback against Polis.
The documented problems inside Colorado’s prisons predate the political fight by years. Disability Law Colorado filed formal complaints with the DOJ in 2022 and 2023. The 2022 complaint accused CDOC of strapping inmates into four-point restraints for days or weeks at a time. It documented inmates confined to cells for up to 24 hours a day without showers and without adequate medical access.
A separate 2022 settlement requiring accommodations for deaf inmates fell apart by 2023 when DLC found CDOC out of compliance. Both complaints were filed under the Biden administration.
The system was already buckling. On August 16, 2025, the state’s prison vacancy rate dropped to 1.92 percent — triggering emergency population management measures for the first time in Colorado history. CDOC had 551 inmates needing placement by June. Only 444 beds were available.
Lawmakers had slashed roughly 300 beds to close a billion-dollar budget gap. They reopened only 100. By January 2026, the county jail backlog climbed to 590 people waiting for state prison intake.
The youth system fared worse. The state emptied Lookout Mountain Youth Services Center in Golden on September 5 after internal emails warned of ongoing “basic safety” failures. Over the prior 14 months, the facility logged 448 incidents. Staff reported 127 assaults by youth on employees.
Eighty-five workers left in that same period. Golden Police responded 194 times. Lookout Mountain reopened in November with 13 juveniles. The facility was built for 96.
On February 16, Judge Sarah Wallace ruled in Mortis v. Polis that CDOC violated the state constitution’s ban on involuntary servitude by forcing inmates to work under threat of solitary confinement. That case — detailed in the companion article — marks the first court enforcement of any state’s anti-slavery amendment. A state judge confirmed constitutional violations inside the same prison system the federal government says it is investigating.
The Dhillon letter invokes the Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act, which carries real enforcement power — court-supervised settlement agreements and mandated reforms. The investigation covers medical care, physical conditions, and use of force, the same categories Disability Law Colorado flagged three years ago. Whether the probe produces reform depends on work that has not yet started.
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