For a change, Gov. Jared Polis is all in on making room for more inmates in Colorado’s correctional institutions. It’s an encouraging turnabout following his years of support for “decarceration.”

That unwieldy word sounds like some kind of disease — and might as well be — though it refers to systematically emptying prisons to the peril of public safety. Although most of Polis’ fellow Democrats in control of the legislature would deny it, decarceration played an instrumental role in driving up Colorado’s crime rate to epic levels in recent years.

It stands to reason that wrongdoers who spend too little time, or none, behind bars will revert to their old ways all too soon when back on the streets. And hard data confirms it: The Common Sense Institute has found that between 2008 and 2021, the state’s inmate population fell by 23% — while annual crimes shot up 47%.

So, it was refreshing to read an update reported by Colorado Politics about how the Polis administration’s proposed budget for next year seeks hundreds of millions of dollars to expand the state’s prison system. Last week, the governor asked legislative budget writers for money to fund one or possibly two new prisons to address crowding — itself a hopeful indication more lawbreakers are being sent to prison again.

In a letter to the legislature’s Joint Budget Committee, Polis’ Office of State Planning and Budgeting said the Department of Corrections will need at least a five-year contract for additional prison beds, potentially using closed private prison facilities. It would cost a minimum of $150 million to $200 million to buy and renovate one of those shuttered prisons, some of which have been mothballed for years, Colorado Politics reports.

But will ruling legislative Democrats go along?

As Colorado Politics reported, the governor’s request for the funding went over like a lead balloon with Democratic members of the budget committee. They had agreed a month earlier to a previous, much more modest request by the administration for supplemental funding in the current budget year — also to alleviate crowding through more prison beds — only on the assumption the governor’s office was willing to explore more alternatives to incarceration, too.

The budget committee’s Sen. Judy Amabile, D-Boulder, seemed incredulous during a committee hearing last week at the request to fund more prisons, calling it, “an obscene misuse of public funds.” Amabile instead advocated steps such as expediting the release of inmates awaiting placement in halfway houses in Colorado’s communities.

Where, of course, they will be free to roam the streets once again; to get into trouble with old associates; to return to a life of crime. But, hey, at least it’ll alleviate crowding behind bars.

It’s the mindset of the “justice reform” movement, the soft-on-crime dogma among many Democrats that continues to drive policymaking at the Capitol. 

To be sure, lawmakers are facing yet another funding shortfall for their overly ambitions spending plans in general for next year’s budget. So, they’ll claim to be all the more hard-pressed to find money for prisons. They’ll leverage the looming “deficit” to shirk their responsibility to keep the law-abiding public safe from criminals. 

The real motivation for justice reform die-hards like Amabile, however, is they simply don’t believe in incarceration. To them, it’s just so uncivilized.

Such is the dilemma Polis faces as he tries to protect the public by keeping more criminals locked up longer. 

The governor’s newfound resolve is laudable, even if belated. Let’s just hope it’s not in vain — given a Democratic majority at the legislature that would rather go easy on felons than safeguard law-abiding citizens.