Pat Sullivan.

The sweet plea deal struck by former Arapahoe County sheriff Pat Sullivan for meth possession and soliciting prostitution, which netted him a sentence of thirty days in jail and probation, has been widely criticized for its leniency. But no one is probably in a better position to appreciate the break handed out to the former lawman than Donny Andrews, a former drug addict Sullivan wanted to put away for good.

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Anderson.

After nearly five days of testimony in a lawsuit brought by Troy Anderson, a prisoner who's been in solitary confinement for twelve years, a Denver federal judge was strongly urging Colorado Department of Corrections officials to fix the harshest conditions at the state's supermax prison -- before he has to do it for them. "It shouldn't take a federal judge to write an opinion and embarrass the department in the public eye to get this accomplished," U.S. District Brooke Jackson said.

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Jeffrey Wells, a Department of Corrections parole officer based in Grand Junction, is well regarded by his fellow employees, who recently named him top employee of the quarter. But he's less venerated by John Morgan and three other parolees, who are currently suing him for allegedly forging documents in order to keep them behind bars longer than is allowed by law. And their attorney suspects the problem may not stop with him.

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Krystal Voss.

Here at the Criminal Affairs Desk, we've tried to aid the rehabilitation process by offering newly convicted felons some insiders' advice for that difficult transition to life behind bars. We've provided former Qwest CEO Joe Nacchio with tips on maintaining personal hygiene and avoiding snitches and bewildered newbies help in dealing with men pretending to be women. And now we have some helpful guidelines for female prisoners, too, straight from the Denver Women's Correctional Facility.

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Jennifer Reali.

At her parole hearing last summer, Jennifer Reali insisted that she's a different person from the 29-year-old, ninja-clad assassin who ambushed and killed her lover's wife, Dianne Hood, outside Hood's lupus support meeting in 1990. The parole board didn't entirely agree, but there's no question that the soundtrack to Reali's life has changed since her murder conviction -- as demonstrated by two albums of original gospel music Reali recently recorded while serving time at the Denver Women's Correctional Facility.

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Last year a federal review panel heard some amazing excuses from corrections officials about why their jails and prisons have exceptionally high rates of sexual assault. One sheriff even claimed inmates were faking stories of rape in order to get cookies from researchers.

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Nearly twenty years after Denver's much-hyped "Summer of Violence" triggered a harsher approach to juvenile offenders statewide, lawmakers are wrestling with two reform bills -- and a new report contends that Colorado's system for moving juvenile cases into adult court isn't working and doesn't provide adequate protection for teen defendants.

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A broad proposal by the country's largest private prison company to buy up and privatize state prisons has been met with a stiff rebuke from the American Civil Liberties Union and a coalition of justice policy and religious groups, who are urging all fifty state governors to reject the company's "invitation to fiscal irresponsibility, prisoner abuse and decreased public safety."

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Somewhere Byron "Whizzer" White is smiling. The late, great University of Colorado football star and U.S. Supreme Court Justice never cared much for his colleagues' bleeding-heart Miranda decision back in 1966, which required that suspects in custody must be advised of their rights before being interrogated. And this week, the Supremes carved out a huge exception to that sacrosanct procedure.

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Tara Perry.

Tara Perry, the subject of this week's cover story, "The Girl Who Fell to Earth," has made a remarkable turnaround since she was first incarcerated thirteen years ago, at the age of sixteen. Corrections staff, teachers and others view her as a model of rehabilitation, one who's tried to transform her remorse for her crimes into positive action. She's earned a college degree, excelled at every program prison has offered her, and is considered a leader in promoting conflict resolution and nonviolence.

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