Unlocking Change

Camping bans. Street sweeps. Supreme Court decisions. Colorado Radio for Justice host JoyBelle Phelan sits down with Dr. Don Burnes - researcher, author, and 40-year veteran of homelessness policy - to dig into the homelessness-to-incarceration cycle in America. Why don't bans and sweeps work? How and why is poverty increasingly criminalized in this country? Why does "tough love" miss the mark? Bu...

A Denver District Court has determined that Colorado's prison labor practices unconstitutional. How did we get here? What's the history of prison labor laws in Colorado and the U.S.? What's the link between the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and the day-to-day life of incarcerated people today? In this episode of UNLOCKING CHANGE, Kym Ray of End Slavery Colorado and David Maxted of Maxted...

Senator Cleave Simpson is Colorado's Senate Minority Leader. In this episode of UNLOCKING CHANGE, Colorado Radio for Justice (CRJ) hosts Herbert Alexander and Ryan Conarro sit down with Senator Simpson to talk about everything from water rights and climate change in Colorado, to his journey from his boyhood farming in Alamosa to state office, to questions of criminal justice reform and mitigating...

As the 2026 Legislative Session of the Colorado General Assembly kicks off, UNLOCKING CHANGE brings a conversation with Javier Mabrey (D), State Representative for House District 1 as well as Chair of the House Judiciary Committee. Colorado Radio for Justice (CRJ) host Herbert Alexander invites Mabrey to share his journey from childhood poverty into legal practice and state politics, and his persp...

It's Part 2 of a two-part conversation with Emma Mclean-Riggs, Senior Staff Attorney from the ACLU of Colorado, who sits down with Colorado Radio for Justice hosts Tiffany McCoy and Trevor Jones. Emma examines the criminalization of poverty and homelessness in Colorado communities; the ACLU's work of not just improving incarcerated people's lives inside facilities, but striving to liberate them; a...

Join Colorado Radio for Justice hosts Tiffany McCoy and Trevor Jones as they dive into a critical conversation with Emma Mclean-Riggs, Senior Staff Attorney from the ACLU of Colorado. Emma discusses the alarming escalations in ICE detention expansions, unlawful deportations by the Trump Administration under the Alien Enemies Act, and the challenges faced by Venezuelan immigrants in Colorado and be...

UNLOCKING CHANGE this month features Part 2 of a two-part conversation with Kristen Nelson, Executive Director of the Spero Justice Center, hosted by Colorado Radio for Justice (CRJ) hosts JoyBelle Phelan and Michael Clifton. Michael shares his journey through the Colorado Department of Corrections and the crime and sentence that brought him there, as a way of examining with the Kristen the curren...

UNLOCKING CHANGE this month features Part 1 of a two-part conversation between Colorado Radio for Justice (CRJ) hosts JoyBelle Phelan and Michael Clifton and Kristen Nelson, Executive Director of the Spero Justice Center. Kristen shares her journey from working on death penalty cases to founding Spero, whose mission is to end mass incarceration in Colorado by addressing long sentences. Michael and...

UNLOCKING CHANGE this month features Christie Donner, Executive Director of the Colorado Criminal Justice Reform Coalition. CRJ hosts JoyBelle Phelan and Ryan Conarro invite Christie to dive into nothing less than the full history of mass incarceration and Colorado… and to share how she insists on hope and authenticity in her decades-long efforts to effect a more humane criminal-legal system. UNLO...

UNLOCKING CHANGE is a podcast by Colorado Radio for Justice (CRJ). This kick-off episode features Rebecca Wallace, Policy Director of the Colorado Freedom Fund. In a conversation with CRJ hosts Tiffany McCoy and Ryan Conarro, Rebecca articulates the importance of supporting the most vulnerable in the criminal legal system; the need to address public health needs over relying on incarceration; and...