COLORADO — The number of juveniles sentenced for homicide and manslaughter-related charges in Colorado was the highest ever recorded in fiscal year 2023, according to the latest annual report from the Division of Youth Services (DYS).
Colorado Springs Police Chief Adrian Vasquez said his department is seeing the rise in juvenile crime. He said last year there was an average of 400 juveniles suspected of crimes in the city each month. Chief Vasquez said a quarter of those youth were suspects in persons crimes, like assault, robbery, and attempted murder.
"We've got 10 year olds that are stabbing people, shooting people. Eleven-year-olds, 12-year-olds are doing the same thing," said Vasquez. "It makes me wonder what could we have done differently to help our kids."
DYS said there's been a 28% increase in juvenile arrests in the state from 2021 to 2023. Chief Vasquez said his officers are arresting the same juveniles over and over again.
"The frustrations are our inability to take somebody who needs to be in custody. They're a prolific offender. They're a violent offender. And we have no place to put them," he said.
He said officers have little ability to hold youth accountable because of the limited bed space in juvenile detention centers. In 2003, Colorado legislators set a 479-bed cap on juvenile detentions facilities. Over the years, the statutory cap has been cut by more than half and now stands at 215 beds.
Each of the eight youth detention centers across the state has their own number of beds allocated under the law. For example, Zebulon Pike Youth Services Center in Colorado Springs is allocated 27 beds.
DYS said a juvenile is held at a youth detention center if they pose a substantial risk to others or are considered a flight risk. Chief Vasquez said officers are arresting youth who meet that criteria, but are sometimes turned away from detention centers because there is not enough room.
"We've either got to let them go, or a juvenile screeners got to say, 'Okay, well, this one that we have in here now has been in here for a while, we'll let them go,'" he said.
Chief Vasquez said when there isn't enough space at Zebulon Pike, sometimes officers will transport juveniles to the nearest facilities in Pueblo or Denver which takes officers off their normal shift.
But, he said it's hard to find space at other facilities, too. Anders Jacobson, the DYS Director, said youth detention facilities maxed out bed space in October of 2023.
"We actually hit and exceeded the detention bed cap. That's never happened in the history of the detention bed cap, so that certainly has our attention and other's attention," said Jacobson.
He said an executive order during COVID temporarily reduced the bed cap from 327 to 200 beds in April 2020 and further reduced the cap to 188 in October 2020. At the time he said it was managable, but now the need for more space is back up after the state saw a rise in violent crimes committed by youth. The latest DYS annual report shows a 53% increase in juveniles committed to facilities for homicide and manslaughter-related charges from fiscal year 2022 to 2023.
"We know that when those type of crimes are being committed, and those type of youth are coming into detention, they're going to stay a lot longer. And when they stay a lot longer, those beds now are taken up," said Jacobson.
State Rep. Lindsey Daugherty, a democrat representing Adams and Jefferson counties, sponsored a 2021 bill lowering the juvenile detention cap from 327 to 215 beds.
"If we increase the bed caps, what we're saying is that we as a society and legislators have not figured out a better way than to detain our juveniles, which I have a really, really big issue with," she said.
She said the reason Colorado is hitting the bed cap is that facilities are holding on to low-risk juveniles who should be let out. A report published by the Colorado Department of Human Services shows one out of three youth detained in the second half of 2022 were screened to be low risk, meaning their risk of re-offending was also low.
"That just means we're not letting out the youth who should have been let out already and if we had been letting those youth out, then that cap number, we would never be hitting it," said Rep. Daugherty.
DYS argues the juveniles inside detention centers that were screened to be low-risk still met the criteria to be held in detention, or else they wouldn't be there.
Rep. Daugherty said a bill passed in 2023 provided a compromise by giving detention facilities 22 emergency beds to share. Instead of transporting juveniles to a facility in another area, Rep. Daugherty said detention centers can increase their own bed cap and lower another location's cap as long as they are not exceeding the total state cap of 215.
However, DYS said every detention center is experiencing a strain and it is difficult to borrow beds. The Colorado Youth Detention Continuum Advisory Board, a working group created by SB21-071, sent a letter requesting the bed cap be increased from 215 to 249 beds in FY 2022-23. No legislation has been passed to increase the bed cap.
One thing most officials agree on is the need for more placement services outside of detention. Youth can be released from detention if a court finds that a placement service will be enough to reduce a juvenile's risk of harm to others, but only if there are placement options available.
"We have to find a way to set that structure up in our in our state so that there are places where these youth can go to and that will help open detention beds," said Jacobson.
Chief Vasquez said he wants to see more diversion programs, but said higher-risk juveniles should still be held accountable under the law.
"That's what our our hope is, is that we can get those juveniles who are committing a lot of crimes into some type of diversion, get them out of their lifestyles. We don't want our kids go into prison. None of us do," said Chief Vasquez.
The collective goal remains the same: to stop criminal behavior while juveniles are under 18 before the consequences rise to the next level.
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