Colorado Radio for Justice

Colorado Radio for Justice A nonpartisan, nonprofit radio station and media organization that supports and empowers people impacted by the criminal-legal system in Colorado and beyond.

Complicating the narrative through stories, news, and music.

HOTLINES this week is part 2 of a convo with Andy Magel, co-founder of the Denver ESE (Employment Social Enterprise) Col...
09/18/2026

HOTLINES this week is part 2 of a convo with Andy Magel, co-founder of the Denver ESE (Employment Social Enterprise) Collective. Magel dives deeper as he talks with CRJ producer Ryan Conarro and Darren Smith, Executive Director of Remerg: how does ESE intersect with reentry from prison or detention? How can employers be ready to support an ESE model? If I’m looking for an ESE job placement, how do I navigate disclosing my lived experience in the criminal-legal system? All this, and much more, as Magel shares his dream for Denver: to be known as a city where real workforce support is readily available to anyone and everyone who’s looking for it.

HOTLINES is CRJ’s weekly show featuring reentry resources and more. Listen on CRJ’s airwaves at 9am and 9pm every weekday… and find it wherever you get your podcasts, or right here: https://pod.link/1808982009

CRJ team in the wild! Some of us got together for a morning coffee meetup this week at Convict Coffee Company’s newest l...
09/18/2026

CRJ team in the wild! Some of us got together for a morning coffee meetup this week at Convict Coffee Company’s newest location on Colfax. Check ‘em out, if you haven’t been yet! We’re excited to have their new location just a hop skip and a jump from our studio. …And grab a haircut at R&R Head Labs while you’re on the block (some of whose staff have appeared on our podcasts HOTLINES and ONE DAY & A WAKE-UP).

HOTLINES this week begins a 2-part conversation with Andy Magel, founder of the Denver ESE Collective. "ESE" stands for ...
09/11/2026

HOTLINES this week begins a 2-part conversation with Andy Magel, founder of the Denver ESE Collective. "ESE" stands for Employment Social Enterprise. Magel sits down in the CRJ studio with producer Ryan Conarro and Darren Smith from Remerg to explain what an ESE is: a business where creating and supporting jobs for people facing barriers is the primary mission, blending enterprise with social purpose. Magel draws from his early experiences volunteering at a Portland rescue mission, and his current work at Village Exchange Center, to reflect on both obvious and "quieter" employment barriers, from background records and housing instability to childcare, transportation, and changes in workplace technology. Magel says that the ESE Collective is working to build ecosystems of support that restore confidence alongside paychecks.

Hotlines is a production of Colorado Radio for Justice (CRJ). www.radioforjustice.org

Sites & resources mentioned in this episode include:
Denver ESE Collecrive: www.denverese.org
Remerg – www.remerg.com

Remerg – www.remerg.com
Hotlines is a production of Colorado Radio for Justice (CRJ). www.radioforjustice.org

09/04/2026

If Proposition 132 passes, it'll cost the state millions of dollars due to increased incarceration rates of people possessing fentanyl. That's according to a 2025 study by the Colorado Behavioral Health Administration. It's also according to Manige Blackburn-Giles from the Colorado Criminal Justice Reform Coalition, in our latest episode of Up to the Minute. Blackburn-Giles tells CRJ host Trevor Jones that the Prop also doesn't designate any funding toward the drug treatment programs that it mandates. Listen to the full episode to hear more about how Proposition 132 would work if passed.

https://uptotheminute-crj.transistor.fm/episodes/the-fentanyl-ballot-measure-prop-132-part-1

09/02/2026

Manige Blackburn-Giles from Colorado Criminal Justice Reform Coalition gets personal in our latest episode of Up to the Minute. She shares with CRJ host Trevor Jones about her brother's death from fentanyl overdose. She says that the impulse behind Proposition 132, an upcoming ballot measure that would set mandatory sentencing for anyone possessing fentanyl, is the grief and anger from many families like her own. But, she says, the terms of this proposition won't actually do the job to solve the fentanyl crisis - and they may make things even harder. Listen to the full episode to hear more about how Proposition 132 would work if passed.

https://uptotheminute-crj.transistor.fm/episodes/the-fentanyl-ballot-measure-prop-132-part-1

Our convo continues with the Community Economic Defense Project this week on CRJ’s Hotlines. CEDP leaders Christina Garc...
09/02/2026

Our convo continues with the Community Economic Defense Project this week on CRJ’s Hotlines. CEDP leaders Christina Garcia and Genie Ruiz take a deeper dive into the range of services their organization offers, including their mobile “Just Bus” and nuanced counseling and support for housing issues and eviction navigation. The CEDP team is hosted by CRJ producer Herbert Alexander and by Darren Smith and Allen Browning from CRJ’s partner organization, Remerg.

HOTLINES is CRJ’s weekly show featuring reentry resources and more. Listen on CRJ’s airwaves at 9am and 9pm every weekday… wherever you get your podcasts... or right here: https://hotlines-crj.transistor.fm/

08/31/2026

Manige Blackburn-Giles from Colorado Criminal Justice Reform Coalition says that Colorado's Proposition 132 - which would impose mandatory minimums for fentanyl possession - would be resurrecting policies that already failed during the War on Drugs. There's substantial data that backs up what Blackburn-GIles claims, like the US Government Accountability Office's 1993 report "Drug Control: Increased Interdiction and Its Contribution to the War on Drugs" - a study conducted by the government itself. In our latest episode of Up to the Minute, CRJ host Trevor Jones digs into Prop 132 with Blackburn-Giles, before it goes before voters in the upcoming midterm elections.

Listen to the full episode to hear more about how Proposition 132 could affect drug sentencing and enforcement.

https://uptotheminute-crj.transistor.fm/episodes/the-fentanyl-ballot-measure-prop-132-part-1

Meet Christina Garcia and Genie Ruiz from the Community Economic Defense Project . That’s in this week’s Hotlines. CEDP...
08/28/2026

Meet Christina Garcia and Genie Ruiz from the Community Economic Defense Project . That’s in this week’s Hotlines. CEDP advocates for people who lack - or who are trying to hold on to - stable housing, and they support economic equity more broadly in Colorado. Garcia and Ruiz look back at their organization’s roots in the housing crisis of the Covid-19 pandemic, and they articulate their core value of meeting people where they are - or, as they put it, “being where the work is.” The CEDP team is hosted in the CRJ studio by producer Herbert Alexander and by Darren Smith and Allen Browning from CRJ’s partner organization, .

HOTLINES is CRJ’s weekly show featuring reentry resources and more. Listen on CRJ’s airwaves at 9am and 9pm every weekday… and find it wherever you get your podcasts, or right here: https://hotlines-crj.transistor.fm/episodes/hotlines-august-24-28-cedp-the-community-economic-defense-project-part-1

This Friday at the Colorado Press Association Network conference, Herbert Alexander and Ryan Conarro from Colorado Radio...
08/26/2026

This Friday at the Colorado Press Association Network conference, Herbert Alexander and Ryan Conarro from Colorado Radio for Justice will team up with Kristen Nelson from Spero Justice Center to lead a roundtable conversation springing from CRJ’s podcast HABITUAL: “Podcasting for Policy: HABITUAL, Justice Reform and Civic Engagement."

Come join us at the venue in Thornton on Friday morning at 9:30am. And tune in to HABITUAL, our five-part investigative documentary on habitual offense sentencing law in Colorado and across the U.S. Here's info about both:

Podcasting for Policy: HABITUAL, Justice Reform and Civic Engagement: https://convention.press/program/schedule/?session=session_39e821b3b5af811ea11acac9b044c182

Listen to HABITUAL: https://habitual.transistor.fm/subscribe

08/26/2026

In our latest episode of UTTM, Manige Blackburn-Giles joins CRJ host Trevor Jones to discuss Proposition 132, a measure that would set mandatory sentencing for anyone possessing fentanyl or fentanyl-tainted drugs, knowingly or not, with a required minimum of 8 to 32 years in prison, removing prosecutorial and judicial discretion.

Listen the full episode at the link below.
https://uptotheminute-crj.transistor.fm/episodes/the-fentanyl-ballot-measure-prop-132-part-1

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