Free Republic

8,000 prison inmates in Colorado have been given computer tablets with the ability to call loved ones from the inside, play games, read books, and listen to music. “Until February, Andrew Stiern could only speak with his girlfriend on a phone in a prison day hall while 10 other inmates listened in and waited impatiently in line behind him,” reported The Denver Post . “Now the 29-year-old inmate can kick back in the limited privacy of his cell at Four Mile Correctional Center in Cañon City and call his girl on a new computer tablet anytime between 6 a.m. and...

A former government prosecutor says the gang murders of Doug and Debbie London showed an unprecedented level of “contempt” in Charlotte for the rule of law. This week, the law strikes back. On Tuesday, the two Charlotte gang members who planned and carried out the Oct. 23, 2014 killings will be sentenced to life in federal prison without parole. The punishments for Jamell “Murda Mel” Cureton and Malcolm “Bloody Silent” Hartley were preordained in September when the pair pleaded guilty in the case to avoid a death-penalty trial.

Accused of human trafficking, she was actually trying to improve the lives of street children I never lit into Barack Obama more viciously than I did the day we learned how Kayla Mueller died, and it still makes me angry when I think about it. Caught up in a hostage situation with Doctors Without Borders, this young American Christian woman was just trying to help others and hurting absolutely no one. But Obama not only refused to help her, he threatened to prosecute her family if they paid the ransom demanded for her release. So she was tortured and killed....

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — A private prison company has announced a $110 million federal contract to build the first new immigrant detention center under the Trump administration. The GEO Group said Thursday the 1,000-bed detention center will be in Conroe, Texas, north of Houston. It's scheduled to open by December 2018. The center coincides with President Donald Trump's promised expansion of immigration detention, part of a crackdown on immigrants in the country illegally....

The estranged wife of former Congressman Anthony Weiner has been meeting with literary agents about her new project, which could detail her side of the sexting scandal and her role in Clinton's run. She may have been on the losing side of the most contentious presidential battle in generations, but Huma Abedin is poised to become a winner on the publishing front. Sources say the longtime adviser to Hillary Clinton and estranged wife of disgraced congressman Anthony Weiner has been meeting with top literary agents during the past few weeks to discuss a book that is envisioned as a reflection...

It is said that Watergate wasn’t about the crime, but about the coverup. Well, at least in the Watergate scandal, there was a proper crime — specifically, the break-in and wiretapping. The frenzy has created a scandal without perpetrators or a crime. There is a sense that Washington is on the brink, but no one can say on the brink of what. Rice has a history of a strained relationship with the truth, and for a national security adviser, she has, at times, flown close to the partisan political flame. So, what was going on? Why did she do it?...

She feels safe enough to "come out of the woods," exactly the time for a Trump administration special prosecutor to launch a broadside. Mentally strong people don't need five months to overcome setbacks. Thomas Edison famously said: "I have not failed 10,000 times. ... I have succeeded in proving that those 10,000 ways will not work." Instead of dwelling on setbacks, true leaders are resilient and persistent. Their passion for their mission - or goal - is independent of external circumstances. On the campaign trail, Trump promised supporters he would "lock her up" for what he considered to be criminal...

Rule change prompted by complaints of murderer serving a life sentence Men's prisons in California may soon provide access to bras, mascara, and lip-gloss for inmates who identify as transgender. Women's prisons would also be equipped with boxers and aftershave, according to rules introduced by the Department of Corrections. The rules stem from a lawsuit brought against the state by a murderer serving a life sentence, who was the first inmate in the state to receive taxpayer-funded sex change surgery. "Transgender female inmates housed in men's facilities could have feminine undergarments, lip gloss and mascara, for instance, while transgender male...

Former National Security Adviser Susan Rice pushed back Wednesday against President Donald Trump’s claim that he was wiretapped by the Obama administration during the 2016 election. “Nothing of the sort occurred,” Rice told PBS NewsHour’s Judy Woodruff, in her first interview since stepping down as national security adviser when President Barack Obama left office. Rice also took aim at the Trump White House in a Washington Post op-ed Wednesday. “False statements from the White House are part of a disturbing pattern of behavior that poses real and potentially profound dangers to U.S. national security,” Rice wrote. In the PBS NewsHour...

Darren Rainey spent two hours locked in a shower inmates at the Dade Correctional Institute said prison guards left set to scalding hot before dying of the injuries caused by the water. Rainey's skin was peeling off when he was removed from the shower. Inmates say he was screaming to be let out before he died, and that guards regularly used extremely hot and cold showers to punish mentally ill patients. Nearly five years later, in a report released Friday, the state's attorney has ruled that there was no criminal conduct by the guards. In her ruling, Katherine Fernandez Rundle...

A parolee has been arrested for a brazen attack on a woman at a liquor store on South Avenue Thursday evening. Police say 59-year-old Kevin Quander has been charged with first degree murder and first degree robbery. They add that Quander is currently on parole for first degree robbery, and was just released from prison on January 12, 2017. Police tell us that officers responded to South Avenue just before 5:00 p.m. Thursday evening when they found 46-year-old Charlotte Lahr of Greece seriously injured. They tell us Lahr was pronounced dead following first aid attempts by the Rochester Police Department...

Continuing to refuse federal immigration detainees at the Westmoreland County Prison could cost $65 million in state funding under a pending sanctuary cities bill being considered in Harrisburg, county officials said. “This is really a horrible piece of legislation,” Commissioner Ted Kopas said of the proposed law overwhelmingly passed by the state Senate in February and now being considered in the House. “We don't have an immigration policy because that is not our job.” The law, if passed, would slash hundreds of millions of dollars in state subsidies to cities and counties that refuse detention requests from U.S. Immigration and...

Full Title: OJ Simpson could be released on parole as early as OCTOBER and looks set to cash in on multi-million NFL pension OJ Simpson may be released from prison as early as this October, after serving nine years of his 33-year sentence. October 1 is the earliest possible parole date the 69-year-old former NFL star. It is expected that a parole board will recommend his release due to good behavior, the Sunday Express reported. Simpson has been serving a nine-year sentence at Lovelock Correctional Center in rural Nevada. He was found guilty in 2008 of 12 counts including kidnapping,...

Weeks following Election Day, stocks for two of the biggest for-profits detention center companies, GEO and CoreCivic, increased between 20 and 40 percent. Libal attributes the rising stock to President Trump’s tough enforcement of immigration laws. “That’s because investors believe that Donald Trump is going to increase deportation and detention of immigrants,” he said. “The longer someone sits at a detention center, the more money the private prison corporation makes.”

Democrats may have a major national security hacking scandal on their hands that’s on the brink of exploding into public view. Investigators, including Capitol Police, have been looking into whether classified or other sensitive information has been hacked by former information technology, or IT, staffers employed by Democrats in Congress. Now, a source has confirmed to WND that the problem is so big, it is being handled as a criminal matter. And the source says suspects will likely receive prison sentences. {..snip..}

Simpson has served eight years of a 33-year sentence O.J. Simpson has been incarcerated at Lovelock Correctional Center in Nevada since 2008 after being sentenced to 33 years in prison, all stemming from an incident at a Las Vegas hotel room from which Simpson attempted to forcefully reclaim memorabilia. The former Bills star and Hall of Fame running back, now 70, was charged with and found guilty on 12 counts, including conspiracy, burglary, robbery, kidnapping and assault with a deadly weapon. This summer, he may get out early. According to analysis from Sports Illustrated legal analyst and University of New...

A drug dealer whose sentence was commuted by Barack Obama is back behind bars on drug charges, the San Antonio Express-News reports. Robert M. Gil, 68, was caught with more than two pounds of cocaine last Thursday following a high-speed chase in Texas. He allegedly crashed his car into another driver and undercover police cars while fleeing from a drug deal, reports the Express-News. Gil was one of 1,385 federal inmates whose sentences were commuted by Obama – he was released in 2015 and lived in a halfway house before settling into a place of his own. He now faces...

A woman who was exposed for posing as a U.S. Army Lieutenant by Guardian of Valor in 2015 was just sentenced to prison by a Nevada judge last week. Kelsie Hoover, a transgender woman who began to undergo gender reassignment surgery a few years ago, was caught posing as a male U.S. soldier at Baltimore Washington Airport named “Michael Cipriani.” Following Guardian of Valor’s video being posted, Hoover was arrested in Oregon and extradited back to Nevada to face charges. Hoover went through trial and was sentenced to up to 20 years in prison.American Military News spoke to Anthony...

9 hours ago "live" footage of prison hostage situation uploaded. I question the timing (Riots in Berkeley?)

For decades, the tough-on-crime movement has well served vote-pandering politicians (remember Jane Orie?), but hasn't reduced crime and imposes an ever-increasing burden on taxpayers. More specifically, the war on drugs is a dismal failure. Saying “drugs are a serious problem” is an understatement, because drug-related offenses aren't limited to possession and distribution. Many violent and property offenses are also drug-related — another understatement.