Parenting From Prison in Colorado

Parenting From Prison in Colorado

In May 2025, Colorado did something most states have not: the legislature passed a law making visitation a legal right for incarcerated people, not a privilege the warden can revoke for bad behavior. House Bill 25-1013 changed the legal foundation under which families can see each other through prison walls. Before it, the Colorado Department of Corrections could deny, suspend, or revoke social visiting as a form of punishment. After it, visits can only be limited for safety reasons, victim protection under a court order, or to prevent co-defendant communication. That is a narrower set of exceptions than the old policy allowed. And if the department tries to use any other reason to keep your children from seeing you, you can file a grievance.

This is the most important change for incarcerated parents in Colorado in years. Not because the visit was always being denied before, but because the legal footing underneath it shifted. You now have standing to push back. That matters.

This guide covers what the new law means in practice, what the communication infrastructure in Colorado actually looks like, how to use every channel available to stay a real presence in your children's lives, and what the family at home needs to do to hold it together.

What HB 25-1013 Actually Changed

Before this law, social visitation in Colorado was officially classified as a privilege, one that could be approved, denied, suspended, or revoked at the discretion of a facility head. That meant a discipline issue could cost you not just privileges inside the facility but the time your children were counting on to see your face.

House Bill 25-1013, signed in 2025 after passing both chambers of the legislature, converted that privilege into a right. The Colorado Department of Corrections can still govern how visitation is administered. They can still adopt rules. They can still impose restrictions that are necessary for routine facility operations or genuine safety purposes. What they cannot do is withhold visitation as a general form of punishment, unrelated to those specific categories.

The CDOC updated Administrative Regulation 300-01, its Offender Visiting Program, to align with the new law. The amendment that passed also requires CDOC to take reasonable measures to increase access to telephone calls and non-contact visits for people in restrictive housing, which is significant for parents at higher custody levels whose main channel to their children had been the phone. And if visitation is denied outside the allowed parameters, you now have a path: file a grievance.

For a parent in a Colorado prison, this law is not an abstraction. It is a tool. Know that it exists. Know that visitation is a right, not a favor. And hold the department to it.

CDOC Communication Infrastructure: Phones, Tablets, and Video

The Colorado Department of Corrections uses Securus Technologies for its communication platform, including phone calls, tablets, and video visiting. Tablets are now deployed at all facilities. Video visiting has been rolled out on a facility-by-facility basis as go-live dates were scheduled and implemented.

**Phone calls.** Calls from CDOC facilities go through Securus and are subject to the FCC's current rate caps. All calls are monitored and recorded except attorney calls. Your family sets up an account through Securus to receive calls and fund the calling account. Our send money guide walks through how to fund the account so the calls keep coming.

**Tablets and messaging.** The Securus tablet program gives you access to electronic messaging, educational content, and video calling. For a parent, the tablet is where you do the work between the phone calls. A short message in the evening that references something specific your child told you recently, delivered without having to wait for a scheduled phone window, builds the daily rhythm of contact that a child needs to feel like a parent is paying attention. It does not have to be long. It has to be real.

**Video visiting.** Video visits through Securus allow your children to see your face. Whether you are at a higher custody level where in-person visits are more restricted, or whether your family lives far enough from the facility that driving for every visit is not realistic, video visits fill a gap that matters. A child who can see your expression when you hear about their school day has a different experience of that conversation than a child on an audio-only call.

**Mail.** Standard mail is inspected before delivery. Handwritten letters remain available and remain powerful. The card you drew, the letter with the word search built from your child's spelling words, the birthday message in your own handwriting, these are things a child carries around. The tablet is the daily thread. The letter is the object they keep.

Visitation Under the New Law: What It Looks Like in Practice

The right to visitation under HB 25-1013 is meaningful, but it operates within CDOC's rules about how visits are conducted. Administrative Regulation 300-01 governs the visiting program. Visitors still need to be approved. Rules still govern dress, conduct, and what can be brought into the visiting room. A first violation of visiting policy can result in up to 30 days of non-contact or video-only visitation. Major visiting violations carry different consequences.

What changed is the floor. The floor under which visitation cannot be taken away now sits at a higher level than it did before. Your children cannot be denied access to you simply because the warden decided your conduct warranted that punishment. If a restriction is imposed that you believe falls outside the safety and security reasons the law allows, file a grievance.

For the practical mechanics of getting visits approved, visit our Colorado inmate search to help your family confirm your location, and then have them work through the approval process for CDOC. The facility contact at 1250 Academy Park Loop, Colorado Springs, CO 80910 can direct families to the current visitor application process. Visits are typically scheduled in advance and require prior approval through the visitor application.

Federal Prison in Colorado: The BOP Framework

Colorado is home to one of the most consequential federal prison complexes in the country: the Florence complex, which includes the Administrative Maximum Security Facility (ADMAX), also called the Supermax, as well as medium and low security facilities. If you are at the Florence ADMAX, your communication access is significantly more restricted than at other federal facilities, and visitation may be extremely limited. If you are at Florence FCI (medium or low), or at the Englewood facility, the standard BOP infrastructure applies.

**Phone.** Three hundred minutes per month, plus 100 additional minutes in November and December. Each call is limited to 15 minutes and costs $0.06 per minute under the FCC's January 2025 rate caps. Every minute has to do the work of parenting, which means every minute needs to be deliberate. Know which child you are calling, know what you are going to say to them, and end the call with something that gives them something to look forward to: your next letter, the question you want them to think about, the thing you will talk about when the call window opens again.

**TRULINCS and CorrLinks.** The BOP's text-only email platform costs $0.05 per minute on your end and nothing on the family's end. No photos, no attachments, only words. For a parent, that limitation actually creates an opportunity: words are what you have, so you learn to use them with precision. Write the letter that the 15-minute call could not hold. Ask the question you have been thinking about all week. Tell your kid something about yourself at their age that they did not know. These are the messages that stay with a child longer than the call.

County Jails: Colorado's Pretrial Reality

Colorado's major county jails, in Denver, El Paso, Arapahoe, Jefferson, and Adams counties among others, each run their own communication systems. Some have moved entirely to remote video visitation through vendors like Securus or GTL/ViaPath. Some maintain in-person visiting. The specific platform and rules change by county and sometimes by facility within the county, so the first step is always to confirm which system the jail uses.

The county jail stage tends to be the most chaotic emotionally for families. The situation is uncertain. Children are trying to make sense of what is happening. The administrative channel is being set up from scratch under pressure. All of that is real, and none of it is a reason to go quiet. The opposite. This is the moment when establishing a consistent, calm, regular presence in your children's lives matters most, because it counteracts the chaos with something they can depend on.

Find out the platform. Get it to your family. Make the first call and make it count.

Making the Call Count in a Rocky Mountain Time Zone

Whether you are at a CDOC facility in the Eastern Plains, the Front Range, or in the mountains, your children are in the same time zone or close to it. That makes coordinating calls easier than it is for incarcerated parents in states where out-of-state transfers are common. Use that proximity: know what your child's after-school window looks like, and try to hit it.

Before you dial, settle on the one child you are calling today and the one thing you want to know about their life right now. Not a general check-in. A specific question that proves you were listening last time. The name of the friend they had trouble with. The test that was coming up. The thing they were excited about that you want to follow up on. That specificity is what makes the call feel like contact rather than obligation, for both of you.

If you have multiple children, rotate deliberately. One child per call, full attention, every call. A child who shares a call with three siblings and gets three minutes of divided attention gets less than a child who gets five focused minutes all to themselves. Say their name at the start. End with I love you. Every single time, no exceptions.

The Letter in the Colorado Context

Colorado's weather varies wildly by region and season, and your children live inside that. The first week of school in late August when the mountain towns are already cooling. The stretch after winter break when February feels endless. The run-up to spring that drags in the foothills. Writing to the season your child is living in, not just the abstract calendar, is one way to make a letter feel like it came from someone paying attention.

Write to each child individually. Not one letter addressed to all of them, one for each. Give them an assignment worth responding to. Ask your co-parent to share progress reports and homework so you have something concrete to reference. The child who gets a letter that mentions their actual teacher and their actual subject and asks a specific question about both knows, on a level that transcends what the letter literally says, that their parent is paying attention.

For younger children who cannot yet read, the letter is still worth sending. Tell your co-parent to read it aloud. The pages came from you. The child understands that even before the reading. The handwriting is yours. The drawing in the corner is yours. That is enough.

For the Family Holding Colorado Together

Colorado passed a law in 2025 that says your family has a right to visit. Know that. If you are denied access that does not fall into the safety categories the law allows, encourage your person to file a grievance. You can also contact CDOC directly at 719-579-9580 to ask questions about the visitation process.

Set up the Securus account early and keep it funded. The account that enables the phone calls is the same account that enables the tablet messaging. An unfunded account goes quiet, and a week of quiet during a difficult stretch for a child is a week they were without their parent when they needed them.

And do the harder thing: hold the line on not speaking negatively about the incarcerated parent in front of the children. Colorado gave families the right to visit. Give your children the right to love both their parents without being handed a reason to choose sides. That is not weakness. That is the most protective thing an adult can do for a child navigating a hard situation.

FAQ

**What did Colorado's HB 25-1013 change for incarcerated parents?** Colorado's House Bill 25-1013, passed in 2025, made social visitation a legal right rather than a privilege. CDOC can no longer withhold visitation as general punishment. Restrictions are now only allowed for safety, victim protection under a court order, or co-defendant communication. If visitation is denied outside those reasons, incarcerated people can file a grievance.

**What communication platform does CDOC use?** CDOC uses Securus Technologies for phone calls, tablet messaging, and video visiting. Tablets are deployed at all CDOC facilities. Video visiting has been implemented on a rolling facility-by-facility schedule. All calls are monitored and recorded except attorney calls.

**How does video visiting work in Colorado state prisons?** Video visiting is available through Securus and allows families to connect face to face without traveling to the facility. Check with your specific CDOC facility for their current video visiting schedule and setup requirements, as go-live dates were implemented by facility.

**What is the situation for federal inmates at Florence, Colorado?** The Florence federal complex includes the ADMAX (Administrative Maximum Security), which has significantly restricted communication access, as well as medium and low FCI facilities. At the FCI facilities, standard BOP rules apply: 300 minutes per month, 15-minute call caps at $0.06 per minute, and TRULINCS email through CorrLinks at $0.05 per minute compose time.

**How do I get visitation approved for my children at a CDOC facility?** Visitors must apply in advance and be approved before visiting. Contact CDOC at 1250 Academy Park Loop, Colorado Springs, CO 80910, or 719-579-9580, or visit our Colorado inmate search to confirm the facility. The CDOC Visitation Rules and Procedures page at cdoc.colorado.gov has current guidance aligned with HB 25-1013.

**Can my child visit me if they are a minor?** Yes, with the appropriate accompanying adult or guardian. Children visiting under CDOC's rules must be accompanied by an approved adult visitor. Check Administrative Regulation 300-01 and the current visiting rules on the CDOC website for the specific requirements, as these were updated in alignment with HB 25-1013.

**What if I am in a county jail in Colorado?** County jails in Colorado each set their own visiting and phone rules. The largest systems are in Denver, El Paso, Arapahoe, Jefferson, and Adams counties. Confirm the platform the jail uses, get that information to your family, and get the account funded as quickly as possible. For finding your location and the jail's contact information, our Colorado inmate search is the starting point.