Colorado Prison and Your Kids: What Families Face

I did not serve my time in Colorado. I served 66 months in the federal system, at FCI Miami, and I want to be honest about that from the first sentence. What I know about Colorado comes from thirteen years of helping families navigate incarceration from the outside, not from a cell in any CDOC facility.

I will start with something worth knowing about Colorado right away: the state has made a serious effort to bring down the cost of phone calls between incarcerated people and their families. Colorado state prisons use Securus, and under state legislation passed in 2023, rates are among the lowest in the country -- currently around $0.01425 per minute, and the CDOC has moved to state-funded calling on tablets so that in many cases the cost to the family is minimal or zero. If your person is in a Colorado state prison, the phone is not the financial barrier it once was. Use it.

Visitation policy in Colorado also changed in 2025 under House Bill 25-1013, which updated visiting rules across all CDOC facilities. If your information about visitation predates 2025, verify the current rules before your next visit.

Here is what I know about Colorado, and here is what I know about the part that never changes.

What the Colorado system looks like

The Colorado Department of Corrections -- the CDOC -- runs facilities across a large and geographically varied state. Facilities range from minimum-security work programs to maximum-security institutions, spread from Denver to Canon City to Sterling to Burlington. For many families, particularly those in Denver or along the Front Range, facilities like the Denver Reception and Diagnostic Center or the Denver Women's Facility may be relatively close. For families in rural parts of the state, or families whose person has been placed at a facility far from home, the distance can be significant.

The CDOC main website is cdoc.colorado.gov. The main phone number for family inquiries is 719-579-9580. The CDOC offender search is available at doc.state.co.us/oss/ and allows searches by name or DOC number.

Phone: Colorado state prisons use Securus Technologies. Under House Bill 23-1133, rates were reduced significantly starting in October 2023, bringing the cost to approximately $0.01425 per minute. Additionally, the CDOC has moved toward state-funded calling on state-issued tablets, which in many facilities means unlimited calling subject to facility time limits and security rules. This is a meaningful change -- calls that once cost families real money are now available at minimal or no cost through the tablet system. Get the Securus account set up, confirm with your person which system their facility uses, and call on a schedule.

Visitation: Colorado updated its visitation policies under House Bill 25-1013, which took effect in 2025. Families should check cdoc.colorado.gov for the current rules before visiting, because what applied a year ago may have changed. The baseline process is: complete Visitor Application Form AR 300-01A, include a copy of your current valid photo ID, and submit to the specific facility where your person is housed. Background checks are conducted annually. Minors who are accompanied by an adult family member who is not their legal guardian require written authorization from the parent or guardian using Form AR 300-01F. Visitor status is reviewed quarterly, and anyone who has not visited in a year will be placed on inactive status and must re-apply.

Do not arrive at a facility expecting to visit before your application has been approved. The wait for approval can take time, and an unapproved visitor will be turned away. Call ahead before every visit to confirm visiting is currently open at that facility -- CDOC does suspend visiting at individual facilities for operational reasons, and the CDOC website posts current status.

For mail, personal letters go directly to the facility. Check the specific facility address and any mail guidelines before sending. Legal mail goes directly to the facility.

For inmate banking and commissary, deposit funds through Securus or through the CDOC's approved channels. More information is at cdoc.colorado.gov/resources-faq.

The children in it

Colorado is a state where the geography creates real distances. Facilities in Sterling are more than two hours from Denver. Facilities in Canon City are 90 minutes away. Families in Grand Junction or Pueblo or other parts of the state may be dealing with drives of several hours to reach the institution where their person is held.

I know those drives. My family drove 90 minutes each way for years to see me in Florida -- not mountains and high desert like Colorado, but the same math: a full day given over to the visit, again and again, for the length of the sentence. And what I know now, looking back at it, is that those drives built something in my children that no other circumstance in their lives would have built. A doctor who knew our family told my wife early in the sentence that we would come out better than we went in, because of all those hours in the car -- kids, her, no screens, just talking. He was right. The burden turned out to be the gift.

If you are making those drives across Colorado's high plains or mountain passes to visit your person, you are not just putting in the time. You are building the family that will exist on the other side of this.

Now let me say what I know about the children making those drives.

My kids ranged from 9 to 20 when I went in, and what each one needed was different in predictable ways.

The youngest ones -- 9, 10, 11 -- do not have the tools to locate the blame for a parent's absence outside themselves. They build a story, and the story almost always involves something they did. You have to say the words out loud and say them every time: this is not your fault. I love you. I am still your parent. You say it until it lands over the story they have told themselves, and then you say it again on the next call.

The middle-school ones are in the years when being different from everyone else is painful, and a parent in prison makes them different. They need you to show up as a parent who is paying attention to their actual life -- who asks about the friend by name, who remembers the test they mentioned. Not a tragedy they are managing. A parent.

The teenagers see everything and will test whether your investment is real. The worst move from inside is the lecture. The best is the question, followed by listening to the full answer. The opinions you cannot act on from where you are -- swallow them. The relationship is worth more.

The young adults are deciding. You earn your place in their lives by what you do, not by what you say.

What the outside parent carries

If you are the outside parent in Colorado -- managing the household, driving to whatever facility holds your person, raising children in a situation you did not fully choose, fielding questions from schools and extended family and neighbors -- I want to say something directly to you.

The invisible sentence you are serving alongside the official one is real. Nobody measures it, nobody gives you credit for it, and most days it does not feel like anything except survival. But what you are doing is construction, not maintenance. Every call you make possible, every visit you show up for, every time you tell your children that their parent loves them and is still their parent, you are building the structure that will be there when the sentence ends.

My wife did that for 66 months. She never spoke a word against me to our children. She drove to visit me, again and again. She protected the relationship between me and our kids as something worth saving. I came home to children who still wanted me because she made that choice every day.

That is what is possible. It takes both sides. If you are the one outside, doing the work, you are building the same thing.

The practical list for Colorado families

Phone: Securus Technologies. Rates reduced under HB 23-1133 (as of October 2023, approximately $0.01425/minute). State-funded tablet calling available at many CDOC facilities -- confirm current calling method with your person. Securus customer service: 1-800-844-6591.

Visitation: Policies updated under HB 25-1013 (2025). Complete Form AR 300-01A with valid photo ID copy and submit to the specific facility. Background check conducted annually. Minors not with their legal guardian require Form AR 300-01F. Inactive status after one year without a visit -- must re-apply. Call ahead before visiting to confirm facility is open. Check current visiting status at cdoc.colorado.gov.

Mail: Personal letters go directly to the facility. Confirm mailing address and guidelines for your person's specific institution. Legal mail direct to facility.

Inmate search: doc.state.co.us/oss/ (search by name or DOC number).

Inmate banking/commissary: Through Securus or CDOC-approved channels. See cdoc.colorado.gov/resources-faq.

CDOC main line: 719-579-9580. Website: cdoc.colorado.gov.

Where this leaves you

Colorado has made real progress on the cost of calls -- for families with someone in a state facility, the financial barrier to staying in phone contact is substantially lower than it used to be. That matters. It means the call your child needs from the other end of the line does not have to be rationed by cost. Take advantage of that.

The drive is still the drive. The distance to a CDOC facility in Sterling or Buena Vista or wherever your person is held is still real distance, and there is no shortcut. Make the drive. The hours are the relationship, whether it feels that way or not.

The sentence ends. What is there when it does depends on what both sides build while it is still running. I know what my family built -- across 90-minute drives and phone calls and a visiting room table for 66 months -- and I came home to it. It was worth every mile and every call.

Do the work. It is worth it.

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