Free Republic

In the midst of New York's 23rd District race, a disturbing amendment allowing inmates to volunteer for non-profits was given the thumbs up from New York voters by an overwhelming 67 percent. According to the New York Times, The amendement would allow New York's State Legislature to write a law allowing prisoners to volunteer at churches, social service groups, and other nonprofit organizations. As of December of 2008, around 60,000 inmates are currently serving time in the state's correctional facilities, according to New York's Department of Correction

The average length of stay until expected release of parole violators that are recommitted with a new felony conviction is 36.71 months.[1]Ohio. Based upon this figure, the cost to incarcerate is $94,834 per recidivist in this demographic. The total incarceration cost alone for these recidivists is between $35.8 and $58.7 billion. Can prisoner recidivism realistically be reduced to a figure below ten percent? It can’t happen overnight, but yes, it can. With state and federal budgets for departments of rehabilitation & corrections reaching incendiary levels, the need to implement new and innovative programs has become profound.

The head of the Census Bureau said Tuesday that the number of convicted criminals who were hired to check home addresses this summer is probably fewer than the 200 estimated by the Government Accountability Office. Robert Groves said the bureau is trying to determine whether it is feasible to require a second security check on job candidates whose fingerprints cannot be read the first time they are run through the FBI database. The bureau is spending $100 million this year checking fingerprints, the first time it has done so for temporary workers. Last week, the GAO said it estimated that...

ATLANTA – A 23-year-old man was convicted Wednesday of aiding terrorist groups by sending videotapes of U.S. landmarks overseas and plotting to support "violent jihad," after a federal jury rejected his arguments that it was "empty talk." The Atlanta jury found Ehsanul Islam Sadequee guilty of all four charges he faced after about five hours of deliberations that began Tuesday afternoon. Sadequee, who could face up to 60 years in prison, is scheduled for sentencing Oct. 15. He stared silently after the verdict was read, and relatives and supporters in the courtroom had no immediate comment.

California corrections officials say the state will no longer spend the estimated $10 million a year it costs to lock up undocumented immigrants with prior convictions who reenter the country illegally after being deported. In the past, the state kept them on parole after deportation and incarcerated them for parole violations when they reentered the country illegally. But a federal court has ordered California to reduce the population of overcrowded prisons.

San Bernardino County officials vowed Thursday not to become a dumping ground for San Francisco criminals, saying they may sue that city for exporting juvenile offenders to local group homes. "The county is exploring every option to recoup all our police expenses," said county Supervisor Gary Ovitt. "This lunacy needs to stop now." Ovitt, joined by other officials at a news conference in San Bernardino, expressed anger over recent revelations that San Francisco sent illegal immigrant cocaine dealers from Honduras to group homes in Yucaipa. Eight juveniles walked away from the homes. One was recaptured in San Francisco this week,...

LOS ANGELES - A Hollywood private investigator was convicted Thursday on charges that he schemed to dig up dirt for his well-heeled clients to use in lawsuits, divorces and contract disputes against the rich and famous. Anthony Pellicano, 64, was accused of wiretapping stars such as Sylvester Stallone, and running the names of others, such as Gary Shandling and Kevin Nealon, through law enforcement databases to help clients in legal and other disputes. Pellicano was convicted of racketeering and racketeering conspiracy counts. Verdicts on dozens of other counts were still being announced in court. The indictment charging Pellicano and his...

LIMA, Peru - A Peruvian court on Tuesday convicted a general and three members of a death squad of kidnapping and murder in a ruling that prosecutors say could set a precedent in the trial of former President Alberto Fujimori. The four were sentenced to prison terms ranging from 15 to 35 years in connection with a 1992 massacre, but the three-judge panel absolved another member of the death squad and three officers accused of providing support for it. The verdict made no reference to a ninth man charged in the case. The judges found the three former soldiers and...

PARIS - A court convicted five former inmates of Guantanamo on terrorism-related charges on Wednesday, but did not send any of them back to prison in France. A sixth man was acquitted, and his lawyer said he would try to win reparations from Washington for his time at the U.S. prison camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Also on Wednesday, three longtime British residents were released from Guantanamo and flown to Britain. London police arrested two on suspicion of preparing terrorist acts, while the third was detained for questioning. The ruling in France capped proceedings that seemed at times like a...

Two men accused of plotting behind prison walls to launch attacks on military sites, synagogues and other targets in 2005 pleaded guilty Friday to conspiring to wage war against the United States. Washington, Patterson and Samana — who attended the same Inglewood mosque — are accused of conducting surveillance of military sites, synagogues, the Israeli Consulate and El Al airline facilities in the region, as well as doing Internet research on Jewish holidays, prosecutors said in 2005.

SAN'A, Yemen - A Yemeni court convicted Wednesday 32 al-Qaida suspects of planning attacks on oil and gas installations in the country, sentencing them to prison terms of up to 15 years. Four others were acquitted. Six of those convicted remain at large and were tried in absentia. The prosecution had charged the group, all from Yemen, with forming an armed gang and planning attacks against oil installations with rocket-propelled grenades in September 2006. The trial opened in March and authorities did not disclose when or how they were arrested. Three of them claimed they were tortured and forced to...

PERIGUEUX, France - A French court convicted a doctor Thursday in the poisoning death of a terminally ill cancer patient, in a trial that has raised the issue of euthanasia in France's presidential race. The court in southwestern Perigueux gave Dr. Laurence Tramois a one-year suspended prison sentence in the Aug. 25, 2003 death of Paulette Druais in the nearby town of Saint-Astier. Euthanasia is illegal in France. But as the trial opened earlier in the week, the Socialist Party said its presidential candidate, Segolene Royal, will push for a law to allow euthanasia under certain conditions if she is...

NEW YORK, March 7 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- A jury in Manhattan federal court convicted Vladimir Kuznetsov of conspiring to commit money laundering, U.S. Attorney Michael J. Garcia for the Southern District of New York announced today. The jury returned a guilty verdict after less than one hour of deliberation. Prior to his arrest in September 2005, Kuznetsov served as chairman of the Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions at the U.N. and was the highest-ranking Russian diplomat at the U.N. The evidence at trial proved that from 2000 through June 2005, Kuznetsov laundered over $300,000 in criminal proceeds obtained by...

ROME - A military tribunal on Saturday convicted 10 former members of the Nazi SS in the 1944 slaughter of more than 700 people near Bologna — the worst civilian massacre in Italy during World War II, news reports said. The 10 received life sentences for murder, while seven others were acquitted, the Italian news agency ANSA and state-run RAI television said. But none of the men was in custody. They were tried in absentia, and all are believed to be living in Germany. The defendants, one former officer and 16 enlisted personnel of the 16th SS Division, were tried...

Sheriff's Pink Duds Have Inmates Vowing to Reform MASON, Texas (AP) - Three county inmates in the jail here lay on their bunks, not saying much. They wore pink jumpsuits and pink slippers, and one was wrapped in pink sheets. They were surrounded by pink bars and pink walls. They were not comfortable. Despite the cramped condition of the tiny jail, the inmates said sitting there was better than working outside, where they might be seen by people they know. Using pink uniforms in a pink jail is a small step to deter inmates from ever wanting to spend more...

A jury convicted four alleged leaders of the Aryan Brotherhood prison gang Friday on charges of murder, conspiracy and racketeering in a federal case aimed at dismantling the violent white supremacist organization. The four defendants did not show any reaction when the verdicts were read in a 15-minute proceeding. Most jurors, who deliberated for two weeks, either looked down or away from the defendants. The trial is part of one of the largest federal capital cases, with more than a dozen people potentially facing the death penalty. More defendants face trials in Los Angeles later this year. Barry "The Baron"...

BAGHDAD, Iraq – The Central Criminal Court of Iraq convicted 12 security detainees May 10 through May 16 for various crimes including organizing, heading, leading, joining armed groups, murder and possessing illegal weapons. The trial court found Mahdi Ahmed Musa Ali al Jabouri guilty of violating Article 194 and Article 406 of the Iraqi Penal Code for organizing, heading, leading, joining armed groups and murder, and sentenced him to death. Coalition Forces apprehended him for leading a terror cell in Mosul. The defendant said he believes in killing Coalition Forces, Iraqi Police and Iraqi National Guard members because he says...

Former state Rep. Jeff Habay, R-Shaler, was sentenced yesterday to six to 12 months in prison and four years' probation for ordering his staff to conduct campaign work on state time. The sentencing by Common Pleas Judge Jeffrey A. Manning came just hours after Mr. Habay, a six-term legislator, resigned his $69,647-a-year seat.

LAS VEGAS (AP) - Anti-tax crusader Irwin Schiff and an associate were found guilty Monday of charges including conspiracy, tax evasion and tax fraud that could get each of them decades in federal prison and millions of dollars in fines. Schiff, 77, who argues that paying taxes is voluntary, was handcuffed and led from U.S. District Court after a jury found him guilty of all 13 charges. "There's no reason to put me in jail," Schiff told Judge Kent Dawson, whose patience was tested while Schiff served as his own lawyer during the five-week trial. "I'm not a flight risk....

Mariel Déjà vu By Tom Barrett, September 19, 2005, Www.conservativetruth.org In 1980, when thousands of Cubans left Cuba for the United States, Castro emptied his prisons and mixed them with the legitimate refugees. He foisted his undesirables on an unsuspecting United States. When Hurricane Katrina approached the coast of Louisiana, the Governor of Louisiana and the Mayor of New Orleans did much the same thing to the generous and unsuspecting people who took in their refugees. According to network news reports, unlike other states Louisiana has no rational plan for dealing with prisoners in the event of an evacuation. Most...

When federal prison officials decided to transfer drug dealer Dwayne Fitzen from one prison to another, they bought him a one-way bus ticket from Minnesota to California. They trusted that the convict known as "Shadow" would check himself into Lompoc Federal Correctional Institution at the end of the two-day trip last fall. What happened next may come as no surprise. Fitzen got off the bus in Las Vegas and vanished. The U.S. Marshals Service considers him "armed and dangerous" and has added him to its growing list of convicts who escaped while traveling alone by bus. Already in San Diego...

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - California's ex-cons are not required to submit DNA samples under a sweeping anti-crime measure voters approved last year, as civil rights groups had feared, a federal judge ruled. U.S. District Judge Fern Smith's decision, released Wednesday in San Francisco, reinforces an opinion by the state attorney general's office that Proposition 69 does not apply to the thousands of convicts who served time for crimes and completed their post-incarceration supervision before voters passed it Nov. 2. The class-action was brought by the American Civil Liberties Union, which sought to clarify a statewide initiative approved by California voters...

SACRAMENTO (AP) - A year ago, when Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed sweeping changes in the state's workers' compensation system, he promised the legislation would protect workers, save billions of dollars and root out fraud and waste. On Tuesday, unions and other groups representing injured workers will mark the first anniversary of those changes with rallies at the Capitol and Schwarzenegger's Los Angeles office. They'll be protesting, not celebrating. The changes, they say, have made things worse for employees who suffer job-related injuries, particularly in the way the administration has been implementing the new law. "The biggest issue we are going...

Michigan pulling ex-con records from Web 3/10/2005, 12:38 a.m. ET The Associated Press LANSING, Mich. (AP) — The state Corrections Department says it is purging its public Internet database of the names of 215,000 ex-convicts who have completed their parole or probation. The Offender Tracking Information System has about 120,000 searches a day. On March 21, the prison system is removing the names of those who are no longer in custody or on probation and parole, department spokesman Russ Marlan told the Detroit Free Press. That would delete the records for such people as Grammy-winning rapper Eminem, who received one...

VISITS to New South Wales by three royals and a president would generate priceless international publicity for the state's tourism industry, Premier Bob Carr said today. Australian-born Crown Princess Mary of Denmark and her husband Prince Frederik will today attend a state luncheon in Sydney as part of their trip to Australia. Israeli President Moshe Katsav will arrive in Sydney this morning, and Britain's Prince Charles, who is due to arrive in Perth tonight, will visit Sydney on Friday and the NSW town of Gunning on Saturday. "While we are honoured to host the tours, there can be no underestimating...

A system that rushes criminal illegal entrants back to Mexico helped push the number of deportations from Eloy to record numbers last month, immigration officials said Wednesday. "Stipulated removal" allows an illegal entrant convicted of a crime to be deported within days instead of weeks and that's at least partly credited for the deportation in January of 766 entrants who committed felonies, said Russell Ahr, spokesman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The system gives convicts the opportunity to not contest their deportation if they were going to be deported anyway, he said. Under U.S. felony-deportation rules, illegal entrants and...

Presidential candidate John Kerry will hold a rally on West Washington between Broom and Bedford streets on Thursday. It is currently scheduled for about noon, with gates opening at 10:00 a.m. WEAC will be providing bus transportation to and from the rally, with buses leaving from the Alliant Energy Center. The buses will begin shuttling members at 10:30 a.m. More information will be posted as it becomes available

Once again in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals - the same collection of activist judges in San Francisco who ruled that the Pledge of Allegiance is illegal and tried to overturn California's "three strikes and you're out" law - has handed down a decision that leaves the rest of us collectively shaking our heads. In Farrakhan v. Washington, the court found that a "statistical disproportionality" in the racial composition of prison populations constitutes a form of discrimination in violation of the 1982 Voting Rights Act. In other words, the fact that minorities are disproportionately represented in prison populations amounts...

ACT (Americans Coming Together) just called me for a phone survey. ACT is the outfit that hired ex-cons to conduct door-to-door voter registration drives until their covers were pulled.Anyway, this lady asked me who I was going to vote for, how strongly I felt about my choice, was there any chance in hell I would vote for Kerry, which national issue I thought was most pressing, etc. At the end of the conversation she thanked me and I told her to hold on, I had a question for her. I asked her if ACT was the organization that hired ex-cons...

Despite President George W. Bush's high poll numbers, the Democrats think they have the key to winning the 2004 elections. Get the votes of convicted felons. Don't laugh; the Democrats are deadly serious. The nation's 4 million convicted felons could be enough to swing the November election. Surveys show that the overwhelming majority would vote Democratic if they could, so felons are a voting bloc that Democrats are just itching to harvest. In addition to providing the magic bullet to elect their candidates in November, this issue reprises all the sour grapes whining by Democrats about the president winning Florida...

AUBURN, NEW YORK At least five more corrections officers were attacked by inmates Wednesday in the second day of Auburn Correctional Facility's lockdown, while local representatives questioned allegations made by state union officials Tuesday that an officer was bitten by an HIV-infected inmate and that prison officials were slow to respond to signs of mounting violence. State Department of Correctional Services Spokesman James Flateau said Wednesday five officers were attacked in two incidents as a cell-by-cell search for weapons, drugs and other contraband continued. Two of the five assaulted officers were treated at Auburn Memorial Hospital for minor injuries and...

In Canada, Supreme Court appointees are never questioned about their special interests or biases. Appointees are secure in their well-paid and powerful positions until they are 75 or die. Their decisions change more laws in Canada than parliament makes. The prime minister, who introduced the "notwithstanding" clasuse in parliament in 1982, has never used it to avoid this advancing judicial dictatorship. These unquestioned judges change the laws and therefore make the laws -- not the politicians.