Compact and barrel-chested, at home in sports jackets and striped T-shirts, Mr. Raemisch looks more like the cop he once was — he spent years as a deputy sheriff, a prosecutor and an elected sheriff before entering corrections — than the head of the state’s largest agency. Soft-spoken and cautious, a self-described “meat and potatoes man” who distrusts adventurous cuisine, he is prone to self-deprecation: At parties, he said, people head the other way when they hear what he does for a living. “Nobody wants to talk,” he said.

Before coming to Colorado, he had spent his entire life in Wisconsin, where his family has century-old roots; a plaque at Madison’s municipal airport commemorates his father, a longtime county board supervisor.

Image Mark Anthony Whatley, an inmate at the San Carlos Correctional Facility in Pueblo, Colo., spoke to Mr. Raemisch. Credit... Matthew Staver for The New York Times

Mr. Raemisch’s staff members have gotten used to his directness, and to his sudden silences. “When he’s quiet, that’s when he’s at his best, because his wheels are turning,” said Kellie Wasko, his deputy.

Like Mr. Clements, Mr. Raemisch emphasizes that 97 percent of inmates will eventually be released.

“First and foremost, you have to understand that they’re going back, and it’s our job to get them prepared and determined to be law-abiding citizens when they go back,” he said. “I don’t want any new victims. That’s what drives me.”

But he has also pushed into territory where few others in his position have ventured. A memo sent to corrections staff this month described an ambitious agenda for the coming months, including allowing death row prisoners out of their cells for four hours a day and sending inmates to solitary confinement for specific lengths of time instead of indefinite periods. “They should know when they’re coming out,” Mr. Raemisch said.

He hopes to go further, making changes in the training of corrections officers, the preparation inmates receive before they are released and the way that corrections officers interact with inmates.