For the past few months, Emmanuel Porter-Taylor and other young men housed at Colorado’s Youthful Offender System detention facility in Pueblo have complained to their parents about being hungry.
Meal portions seem to be getting smaller and smaller. The canteen, where incarcerated teens and young adults can buy snacks and other food items, is only reserved for those who have achieved higher privilege levels based on good behavior.
Porter-Taylor lost 20 to 30 pounds in recent weeks, his mother told The Denver Post. His eyes began to yellow. He couldn’t keep water down. Staff gave him Tylenol and told him to sleep, his mother, Ivory Taylor, said in an interview.
“Mom,” his mother said he told her last week, “I think they’re trying to kill me.”
The 22-year-old ended up in the hospital, where doctors concluded that his condition was caused by malnutrition, according to his family. When Porter-Taylor was stable, the hospital released him back to the detention center with a referral to see a kidney specialist as soon as possible. Doctors also said he needed to double his daily food intake, the family said.
Administrators at the state’s facility for young violent offenders said he’d have to wait six months to see a specialist, the family said. He was not given additional food.
On Sunday, Porter-Taylor was rushed back to the hospital, suffering from full renal failure, according to a letter sent by a juvenile justice advocate to a state senator. He was flown the following day from Pueblo to a Denver hospital.
His family, though, says they have no idea how he’s doing because the Colorado Department of Corrections reported they couldn’t find his “release of information” document, emails show. The family knows they filled it out.
“I want him to pay his debts and get out alive,” Taylor said of her son, who isn’t eligible for parole for two more years. “I don’t want to bury my 22-year-old kid.”
Parents say they’re worried their kids could be next. Ten mothers told The Post this week that they have watched their boys lose concerning amounts of weight over the past few months, as they complain about the lack of sufficient food at the 256-bed facility. Some have yellowing in their eyes. Others have fainted, become dizzy or found blood in their stool.
These accounts led a juvenile justice organization, the National Center for Youth Law, to sound the alarm and alert Colorado lawmakers and state corrections officials.
“They don’t even treat prisoners of war like this,” said one of the mothers. All but Taylor spoke to The Post on the condition of anonymity because they fear reprisal against their children.
A spokesperson with the Department of Corrections, which runs the Pueblo facility, declined to provide information on Porter-Taylor’s condition, citing federal and state privacy laws.
The department has gradually decreased the calorie count provided to those housed in the YOS detention facility in recent years to align with federal guidelines, said Alondra Gonzalez, a DOC spokesperson. Food is never withheld as a punitive measure, she said.
“All individuals in our custody receive appropriate food and medical care,” she wrote in a statement provided to The Post on Friday evening.
‘We hardly get anything’
The Colorado legislature established the Youthful Offender System, known as YOS, in 1993 in response to Denver’s “summer of violence,” a period marked by heightened youth homicides. Senate Bill 93S-009 provided the state with a new “middle tier” sentencing option, where certain youth offenders could be sentenced as adults directly into YOS.
These individuals “serve their sentence in a controlled and regimented environment that affirms dignity of self and others, promotes values of work and self-discipline, and develops useful skills and abilities through enriched programming,” corrections officials said in the 2024 YOS annual report.
The facility, which only houses violent offenders, was originally designed for those between the ages of 14 and 17 at the time of their offense, though a 2009 bill expanded the eligibility criteria to include 18- and 19-year-olds. Sentences cannot be shorter than two years and cannot exceed six years.
YOS touts a three-level model, designed to reward positive behavior. At level 3, individuals get unlimited visits and phone calls, video games, movies and free weights. They can also buy items such as deodorant or snacks from the canteen.
But those at lower levels cannot purchase food from the canteen, nor can they receive food packages from their family.
That leaves them reliant on prison meals that keep getting smaller and smaller, the parents who spoke to The Post said. Portions began to shrink a few months ago, these mothers said. One said entrees could fit in the palm of their hand.
Breakfasts have included an English muffin and a sausage. Lunch could be beans with two tortillas. Dinner might consist of four mini corndogs and a cup of macaroni and cheese.
“You feed our dog more than what we get on our plate,” another parent recounted their teen telling them this week. “We hardly get anything.”
YOS menus provided to The Post by the Department of Corrections show a variety of different meals. One recent lunch included one slice of cheese pizza, a cup of tossed green salad with olives and croutons, one cup of canned fruit and one cup of punch. A recent dinner consisted of one cup of spinach lasagna, salad, a slice of Texas toast and peach crisp.
Parents say their children’s weight loss has been extreme and noticeable. Many lost as many as 30 pounds in less than two months.
Without the ability to send food through the mail or use their canteen funds, parents have been forced to feed their children as much as they can during in-person visits. That means relying on whatever the vending machine in the lobby has left. Sometimes, it’s nearly bare.
“When you see a dog on the street that hasn’t eaten in a week,” a third mother told The Post, “that’s what he looked like.”
One individual who was incarcerated at YOS until last month said he relied on the canteen to supplement their meals. Without it, “it would have been tough,” he said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they’re still on probation and fear reprisal. Sometimes, those on higher levels would try and sneak food to their lower-level friends, he said, but they risked being demoted themselves.
Recently, a group of 12 young people wrote a letter to leadership requesting more food, among other changes, one parent said. The boy who wrote the letter got put in solitary confinement, they said.
Gonzalez, the DOC spokesperson, said the level system is a “standard correctional practice to promote positive behavior,” but that meals are never withheld as a punitive measure. The DOC is “reviewing the current phases to determine whether any adjustments are necessary.”
Last month, another mother wrote a letter to the DOC, pleading with leadership to address the food shortage and punitive commissary policy.
“Adequate nutrition is not a privilege,” this woman wrote in the letter, which was reviewed by The Post. “It is a fundamental necessity for health and rehabilitation.”
The mother said DOC never replied.
In response to inquiries from state Sen. Judy Amabile this week, a corrections official acknowledged that YOS did “reduce caloric intake” for inmates due to the agency’s dieticians and the Department of Human Services “agreeing that the average (body mass index) of YOS offenders was higher than what was considered healthy within the age group.”
The average age of YOS offenders has risen over time, which means less caloric needs, Kayla Shock, the DOC’s legislative liaison, said in an email reviewed by The Post. If an individual requires additional calories, they will be assessed by the medical provider and provided an additional snack, she wrote.
YOS data shows the average age inside the facility has increased to 19.1 years old in 2024 from 16.8 years old in 2007.
During fiscal year 2022-2023, males in YOS received 3,200 calories per day, while females received 2,600 calories, Gonzalez said. Beginning in 2024-2025, those numbers dropped to 2,700 calories for men and 2,200 for women.
Gonzalez said the agency changed its food allotments to align with federal standards updated every five years by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. When these updates occur, she said, the state’s team of registered dietitians reviews the changes to ensure their menus are up to date.
Amabile, a Boulder Democrat who has worked on juvenile justice bills, called the calorie reduction “surprising.”
“If they’re cutting the number of calories that kids get every day — which includes people of different sizes — I would want to know: Is that healthier for them or is that a cost-cutting measure?” she said.
‘I don’t know if my son’s alive’
Porter-Taylor’s biological mother and the woman who had been his legal guardian say they haven’t been able to get updates on their son’s condition.
In an email, a health services administrator told Taylor that “we don’t have anyone designated as the point of contact to release medical information.”
Both Taylor and his former legal guardian, who has the power of attorney and considers him her son, remember these documents being filled out.
“Now it’s been six days since this surgery and I haven’t heard from my son,” Taylor said, “I don’t know if my son’s alive or not.”
If the details surrounding Porter-Taylor’s malnutrition are true, then this facility “now more closely resembles a concentration camp,” Dana Walters Flores, senior program manager for the National Center for Youth Law, wrote in a letter to Amabile this week.
“Young people paying a debt to society by serving time in a secure facility are still our sons and daughters — to turn a blind eye while youth in the custody and care of the state of Colorado are starving is unconscionable,” she wrote.
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