"If the defendant is sentenced to the Department of Corrections, he or she may not serve his or her entire sentence in prison but may be released to community corrections or parole. The defendant's Parole Eligibility Date (PED) occurs after he or she has served fifty or seventy-five percent of his or her sentence, as provided in section 17-22.5-403, Colorado Revised Statutes, less any authorized earned time.
If the defendant is sentenced to the Department of Corrections, he or she may be eligible for a reduction in the length of his or her sentence by earned time. Regular earned time is up to ten or twelve days per month, not to exceed thirty percent of the defendant's sentence; however, the defendant may be eligible for further limited reductions through the application of various types of earned time provided in statute and administered pursuant to the policy of the Department of Corrections.
If the defendant is sentenced to the Department of Corrections, he or she may be eligible for release, to await parole in a community corrections facility, if such release is approved by the local community corrections board. If the defendant was not convicted of a crime of violence, as defined in section 18-1.3-406 (2), Colorado Revised Statutes, he or she may be moved to a community corrections placement as early as sixteen months prior to his or her PED. If the defendant was convicted of a crime of violence, he or she cannot be moved to a community corrections placement earlier than one hundred eighty days prior to his or her PED.
A defendant's eligibility for community corrections or parole does not necessarily mean that community corrections or parole will be granted. The inmate locator on the internet website of the Department of Corrections can provide additional information regarding the sentence of an individual defendant.
The provisions of this statement do not apply to a defendant who has been sentenced to the youthful offender system within the Department of Corrections."
Each defendant may, at the time of conviction or at any time thereafter, apply to the court for an order of collateral relief of the consequences of the defendant's conviction pursuant to the provisions of section 18-1.3-107, Colorado Revised Statutes.
C.R.S. § 16-11-102
(1) The effective date for amendments made to this section by chapter 216, L. 77, was changed from July 1, 1978, to April 1, 1979, by chapter 1, First Extraordinary Session, L. 78, and was subsequently changed to July 1, 1979, by chapter 157, § 23, L. 79. See People v. McKenna, 199 Colo. 452, 611 P.2d 574 (1980).
(2) Amendments to subsection (1)(b) by House Bill 12-1310 and House Bill 12-1346 were harmonized.
(3) Subsection (1.8) was amended in section 2 of HB 21-1091. Those amendments were superseded by the amendment of subsection (1.8) in SB 21-059, effective October 1, 2021. For the amendments to subsection (1.8) in HB 21-1091 in effect from May 24, 2021, to October 1, 2021, see section 2 of chapter 175, Session Laws of Colorado 2021. (L. 2021, p. 955.)
For the legislative declaration contained in the 1994 act amending subsection (1)(a), see section 1 of chapter 345, Session Laws of Colorado 1994. For the legislative declaration contained in the 2002 act amending subsections (1.7), (4), (5), and (6), see section 1 of chapter 318, Session Laws of Colorado 2002. For the legislative declaration in SB 17-242, see section 1 of chapter 263, Session Laws of Colorado 2017. For the legislative declaration in SB 23-039, see section 1 of chapter 191, Session Laws of Colorado 2023.