Senate Bill 163 is a modest but important next step in scaling back the worst excesses of the expensive, intrusive and counter-productive War on Drugs in Colorado.

When Colorado lawmakers created the direct-file option, the expectation was that it would be used primarily for homicide cases. However, less serious offenders and juveniles who never spent time in a juvenile facility being sent to the adult system indicate the current system has gone too far and, like other governmental functions, needs appropriate checks and balances.

Based on a totality of the factors, we believe that judicial review must be an integral part of transferring a juvenile to criminal court, given both the rehabilitative aspects of juvenile offending and the specialized programing offered in the juvenile justice system.

In 2010, Colorado lawmakers took a meaningful step towards drug law reform by passing House Bill 1352, which nibbles at the edges of the disastrous War on Drugs by amending some of Colorado’s controlled substance statutes.

And while lawmakers continued that reform momentum in 2011, those efforts were tempered by other bills that expanded an already intrusive and expensive drug law regime that returns questionable public safety value.

The 2011 Colorado legislature took a modest, but welcome step towards restraining its own penchant for overcriminalizing the economic and personal lives of Coloradans. Let’s hope it makes us all a little bit freer from an often overweening state.

To be sure, when offenders released to parole then re-offend (commit crimes), a revocation of parole (or a new prosecution) and a return to prison is a necessary part of the price we pay for separating criminals from the public. But technical parole revocations back to prison (where there is not a new crime, but rather some violation of the terms of parole) is an available area for lawmakers to seek out reforms for both cost savings and more efficient use of existing criminal justice resources.

Over the past few weeks, there has been a lot of concern in some quarters about President Obama’s Executive Order extending certain legal immunities to the International Criminal Police Organization, or Interpol. These concerns are misplaced.

Republicans often claim to be the party of fiscal conservatism and limited government. But Republican lawmakers in Colorado show little enthusiasm for applying those principles to Colorado’s hugely expensive prison bureaucracy. So when sentencing reform bills pop up in the next legislative session, it will be an excellent opportunity for Republicans to show if they really are the party of fiscal discipline, or if they are going to leave the heavy lifting to the Democrat majority.

The use of public surveillance cameras to fight crime has been a heated topic for quite some time. The issue was reignited last August when the city of Denver used federal funds to purchase an additional fifty High Activity Location Observation (HALO) cameras from the original thirteen cameras at $25,000 a pop to fight crime. Increasing the number of surveillance cameras may create a marginally safer environment, but at a significant cost to civil liberty.

Colorado lawmakers’ long-running devotion to the War on Drugs has helped push state prison spending to unsustainable levels. In the meantime, illicit drugs remain readily available throughout the state. This year, the Colorado Commission on Criminal and Juvenile Justice (CCJJ) has broken down into several sub-groups including a Drug Policy Task Force, to take a hard look at the state’s drug laws and sentencing policies.