Free Republic

If BLM leaders care about black lives, they ought to focus on what can improve the quality of life for black Americans — starting with stronger families. >Positing that “Black Lives Matter” is such an obvious fact that repeating it sounds banal. Only an outright racist would question this premise. Therefore, the frequent “All Lives Matter” retort of critics often inflames the sensibilities of activists, with many in the BLM movement find this assertion objectionable on the basis that it misinterprets their message. The phrase “Black Lives Matter” is not a declaration that other lives are unimportant, activists say, but...

In the past several months, we’ve seen a flurry of state-level policy recommendations and actions aimed at making criminal justice reform a legislative priority. This week, President Trump granted clemency to 11 people whose length of incarceration didn’t fit their crimes. Today, President Trump is speaking at Hope for Prisoners, a Las Vegas organization that provides services and support to the formerly incarcerated as they work to reintegrate into society. There, he will speak to people re-entering the community, highlighting White House efforts to give former inmates new opportunities. As the executive director of an organization on the frontlines of...

If Van Jones, Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Kim Kardashian all agree on a bill, it’s probably not a good idea. Republicans and Democrats came together to pass the FIRST STEP Act into law this month, which will allow felons early release. It’s being touted as a criminal justice system overhaul, to let nonviolent offenders out of prison for good behavior. But as Senator Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), who graduated from Harvard Law School, observed, “there are almost no low-level, non-violent offenders in federal prison.” If they are in prison for low-level convictions, it’s because they were allowed to plea down to a...

As a former federal prosecutor, I am clear-eyed about crime. Unlike some reformers, I don’t think our justice system is fundamentally broken, unjust, or corrupt. I have nothing but respect for law-enforcement officials, who put themselves in danger every single day in order to protect the public. I know from experience that dangerous criminals exist — individuals who are incapable of or uninterested in rehabilitation and change. We should throw the book at those people. But my time as a prosecutor also tells me that not every criminal is dangerous or incapable of living a productive life. My faith as...

The package of criminal justice reform proposals endorsed by President Donald Trump is not "soft" on crime. It's tough on injustice. And it's about time. Known as the "First Step Act," the legislation confronts the Titanic failure of the federal government's trillion-dollar war on drugs by reforming mandatory minimum sentences, rectifying unscientifically grounded disparities in criminal penalties for crack vs. powder cocaine users, and tackling recidivism among federal inmates through risk assessment, earned-time credit incentive structures, re-entry programs and transitional housing. There's nothing radical about giving law-breakers who served their time an opportunity to turn their lives around and avoid...

. . . that try men’s souls. In Common Sense, his hit pamphlet of 1776, Tom Paine lamented that “Every spot of the old world is overrun with oppression. Freedom hath been hunted round the globe.” Appealing to Americans, he urged us to “receive the fugitive, and prepare in time an asylum for mankind.” Today . . . well, our country might be mistaken for an asylum. Just not the type envisioned by Citizen Tom Paine. Freedom is now under siege right here in America. Even before police added two more black men, one in Minnesota and one in Louisiana,...

San Diego police officer Browder killed a man who initially he said was unarmed. After viewing this video, he changed his story and claimed the man was holding a knife, which he wasn't.

Aren't Democrats supposed to be more enlightened on this issue?Yesterday the Brennan Center for Justice published an essay collection that highlights both the emerging bipartisan consensus in favor of criminal justice reform and the vacuousness of some politicians who claim to support that cause. The book, titled Solutions: American Leaders Speak Out on Criminal Justice, features worthy and substantive contributions from, among others, Sens. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), Cory Booker (D-N.J.), and Ted Cruz (R-Texas), not to mention nonpoliticians such as UCLA criminologist Mark Kleiman and Marc Levin, founder of Right on Crime. Even New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who is...

Radical jihadist groups are recruiting from among America’s prison population It’s not even a secret that radical jihadist groups are recruiting from among America’s prison population. They do so by turning to dejected people who face long sentences and offering them a distorted sense of purpose. They cater to their bitterness and seek to turn it against society. Stopping them in their tracks is easy and would harm no one (and I do mean no one, not criminals, law enforcement, society or prison workers and owners; read on) and would benefit all in many ways.