Colorado is directing tens of millions of dollars in federal COVID-19 relief money toward law enforcement — a shift from initial pledges to address affordability and health care in the wake of the pandemic.
"Hiring and retaining staff has been a challenge for correctional institutions across the country for state, federal and private facilities," Annie Skinner, a spokesperson at the state prisons agency tells us, explaining the private prisons bonuses.
The project list provided by the Treasury Department compiled in the analysis includes about 630 grants totaling $1.5 billion — less than half the amount the state of Colorado is expected to receive. Often, the entities that received federal dollars exert the most political power, such as police and prisons, rather than programs that address public health or economic concerns.Many of the spending reports submitted to the federal government strained to make a connection to the pandemic, except to say they would have had more tax revenue if the crisis hadn't occurred.
Sedgwick County's sheriff said its two-way radios were needed to "eliminate face-to-face contact" during the pandemic.Phillips County and the city of Northglenn purchased new police cars.Others offered direct justification for the criminal justice spending. Pueblo and Fort Collins used part of their allotment to boost the co-responder model that links police officers with mental health clinicians.
Larimer County said it needed $72,000 for its GPS monitoring program because it saw a 400% increase in the number of high-risk defendants released from jail early.Expect to see more law enforcement spending in coming months. Millions more in ARPA dollars will be budgeted ahead of the 2024 deadline to allocate the money.
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