State Prison Release Path
CDOC covers San Juan County defendants only after they become state-prison offenders. Once a person is sentenced from San Juan County to the Colorado Department of Corrections, the county jail record becomes the local booking, holding, and transport record. The forward-looking release record then moves to CDOC and the Colorado State Board of Parole. CDOC release may mean parole, mandatory release to parole, sentence discharge, facility transfer, or another custody status tied to the state sentence.
This is different from a San Juan County Jail release. A person who posts bond or receives a local court release may never appear in CDOC for that event. A person transported from the jail to prison may stop appearing in local custody information while CDOC becomes the system showing current facility, convictions, estimated parole eligibility, next parole hearing, estimated mandatory release, estimated sentence discharge, and release or discharge dates where available. Readers should choose CDOC only when the case path includes state-prison custody.
The official CDOC Offender Search is at https://www.doc.state.co.us/oss/. The public form accepts DOCNO, last name, first name, and gender. Research descriptions of CDOC records identify possible public fields such as offender name, corrections number, age, physical descriptors, photo where available, current facility, current convictions, parole/release/discharge dates, estimated parole eligibility date, next parole hearing date, estimated mandatory release date, and estimated sentence discharge date.
How to Use CDOC Search
Use DOCNO first if it is available because name searches can return multiple people. If DOCNO is unknown, search last name and, when available, first name and gender. Review each result against age, physical descriptors, DOC number, current facility, and convictions before treating it as the right person. CDOC does not organize searches around San Juan County bookings, so a county name alone is not the right way to search.
- Open the CDOC Offender Search at https://www.doc.state.co.us/oss/.
- Enter DOCNO if known, or enter last name with first name and gender when available.
- Open the matching offender detail after checking identifiers carefully.
- Look for estimated parole eligibility date, next parole hearing date, estimated mandatory release date, estimated sentence discharge date, current facility, convictions, and release or discharge fields.
- If a parole hearing is indicated, use the CDOC "Par. Board" calendar view for the relevant month or schedule.
- For official time-calculation questions, use CDOC records or Time & Release contacts rather than treating a public screen as a certified computation.
On the Projected Release page, Colorado terminology matters. CDOC-style fields include estimated mandatory release date and estimated sentence discharge date. Estimated parole eligibility is not a promised release date. It is a date or period when the person may be considered for discretionary parole, subject to the sentence, offense category, earned time, parole-board decision, parole plan, misconduct, sentence changes, and other legal factors.
CDOC Records and Contacts
The main public lookup is the CDOC Offender Search. The CDOC search menu also points to the department website, and the parole-board calendar view is available from the same offender-search system. The research notes an older captured CDOC form statement that official time-calculation records should be requested from Time & Release operations at doc_open_records@state.co.us. Because public web pages and forms can change, use that as a route to verify, not as a guarantee that every request belongs in the same inbox forever.
CDOC records are the right route for state-prison release, parole eligibility, mandatory release, sentence discharge, and parole-board schedule. They are not the right route for a county-jail booking photo, local bond release, local court dismissal, or short jail sentence. Those remain San Juan County sheriff and court records unless the person later entered state prison.
Colorado Department of Corrections
Statewide Colorado prison system
Offender Search: https://www.doc.state.co.us/oss/
CDOC / State Board of Parole
State-prison release, parole, mandatory release, and discharge path
What CDOC Covers
CDOC covers sentenced state-prison custody. A San Juan County defendant may pass through the county jail before entering CDOC, but the systems answer different questions. The jail answers: was this person booked locally, when did local custody end, and where did the person go? CDOC answers: is this person in Colorado state corrections, what facility or status is shown, what convictions are listed, what release-related dates appear, and whether parole or discharge is part of the state sentence.
Colorado law affects these dates. C.R.S. 17-22.5-403 governs parole eligibility for many felony sentences and contains offense-specific rules. C.R.S. 17-22.5-405 governs earned time and includes monthly earned-time provisions that can affect calculations. Public research also notes post-2024 changes for certain violent-crime parole-eligibility rules. Do not reduce Colorado release timing to one percentage. The offense, date, sentence, statutory category, earned time, parole-board action, misconduct, sentence amendments, and new cases can all affect the public estimate.
Parole, Mandatory Release, Discharge
Parole follows state-prison custody and is handled through CDOC and the Colorado State Board of Parole. Probation is different. A person sentenced by the San Juan Combined Courts to probation after a local jail release may not have a CDOC prison-release record for that event. For parole, use CDOC Offender Search, the parole-board calendar, parole-board decisions or reports when relevant, and Adult Parole supervision contacts. For probation, use the court case and probation route.
Mandatory release and sentence discharge should also be read carefully. Mandatory release does not necessarily mean the sentence is over; it can involve release to parole or supervision depending on the sentence. Sentence discharge is a different milestone. CDOC public fields are helpful for orientation, but official calculations should come from the records route when precision matters.