By Elizabeth Caven The evening the video of the brutal attack went viral, a wave of disbelief washed over Colorado: How could a man charged with attempted murder be free on the streets, not by bail or a plea deal, but because the law declared him unfit to stand trial and therefore not required to be held any longer?  Yet that is exactly what happened when Debisa Ephraim, with a documented history of assault, burglary, and theft, was released after prosecutors were forced to dismiss the case under the state’s competency statute. The Weld County Sheriff noted that Ephraim did not have any diagnosed mental illnesses, yet his defense argued that, having little formal education and coming from another country, he didn’t understand how the criminal justice system worked in the U.S. The claim was made despite multiple previous arrests, suggesting that Ephraim understood the criminal justice process well enough to repeatedly cycle through it. Ephraim’s case is far from unique. Across Colorado, we have seen a rising number of offenders repeatedly released under Colorado’s competency laws. These laws, though originally designed to protect the genuinely mentally ill, have evolved into a loophole that allows dangerous individuals to avoid accountability and return to communities without supervision or treatment.  This loophole did not appear overnight. Over the past decade, Colorado has steadily expanded policies aimed at reducing incarceration and promoting diversion: competency statutes, sentencing adjustments, and a broad push toward diversion. What was once framed as “reform” has increasingly come at the expense of public safety. Before voters approved Proposition 128 in 2024, violent offenders were serving, on average, less than half of their sentences — roughly 43% — before being released. Meanwhile, the state continued to tighten prison capacity through HB18-1410 and SB19-143, which reduced available bed space even as violent crime rose. Colorado’s earlier decision to make auto theft penalties value-based similarly weakened accountability. The policy incentivized the theft of lower-value vehicles and contributed to a 231% increase in motor vehicle theft over 10 years. Although the legislature recently reclassified auto theft, Colorado still imposes no mandatory jail time, and the crime carries a stagering 97% reoffense rate.  These failures are not isolated. A recent report from Advance Colorado, “Crisis of Safety: How Policy Choices Put Coloradans at Risk,” outlines how Colorado’s broader system of leniency, spanning personal recognizance (PR) bonds, violent crime trends, and years of policies that prioritize diversion over accountability, has created the conditions that allow cases like Ephraim’s to occur again and again. The report details how the policies interact, forming a pipeline of release that repeatedly puts dangerous individuals back into Colorado communities.  Against this backdrop, Colorado’s competency statutes have quietly become another tool in the state’s prison diversion strategy. HB24-1034, the most recent change to competency laws, requires judges to release certain defendants — including violent offenders — if they are deemed “permanently incompetent,” even when they pose a clear risk. If the state lacks civil commitment beds (which we have for years), or if the defendant refuses admission, release is mandatory. A single evaluator can deem a defendant unrestorable, and once that determination is made, follow-up is minimal. Together, these policies — reduced sentences, restricted prison capacity, weakened auto theft laws, expansive PR bond use, and now, loose competency statutes — have created a criminal justice framework where release has become the default outcome, regardless of the offense. The reality on the ground is that Colorado’s approach is putting communities at risk while leaving law enforcement and prosecutors with fewer tools to protect the public.  Stock photo If the state is serious about public safety, lawmakers must acknowledge the consequences of these decisions and reverse course. That begins with closing the competency loophole that allowed a violent offender like Debisa Ephraim to walk free, and addressing the broader pattern of policy choices that continue to undermine public safety. Colorado cannot continue on this path and expect different results.  Elizabeth Caven is the outreach director and policy analyst at Advance Colorado and the author of the new report, “Crisis of Safety.” ...read more read less