Free Republic

Ricky Haggood firebombed Richard and Deborah Dozier's house on Carmel Street in New Haven in 1990, while the couple was upstairs in their bedroom, sleeping. They managed to race out the back. Haggood thought the Doziers, who were active in the local block watch, had tipped police off to drug dealing on the street. Haggood received a 20-year sentence in 1991 for arson. But by 2003, several years short of his maximum release date, Haggood was on the lam. He didn't go over the wall — they almost never do. He was released, by the state parole board, to parole...

One of the most influential evangelical leaders in the United States says Christians should go to jail rather than comply with the Obama administration’s mandate to provide all contraception, including abortion-inducing drugs, in their health care plans. Dr. Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC), told LifeSiteNews.com “we will not comply” with the Dept. of Health and Human Services’ mandate requiring religious institutions to cover abortifacient products such as Plan B, Ella, and the IUD. “We want the law changed, or else we’re going to write our letters from the Nashville jail, just...

A jail in the eastern city of Pohang plans to run a month-long trial with three of the automatons in March. The machines will monitor inmates for abnormal behaviour. Researchers say they will help reduce the workload for other guards. South Korea aims to be a world leaders in robotics. Business leaders believe the field has the potential to become a major export industry. The three 5ft-high (1.5m) robots involved in the prison trial have been developed by the Asian Forum for Corrections, a South Korean group of researchers who specialise in criminality and prison policies. It said the robots...

I've long thought the notion of a prison-industrial complex to be laughable left-wing nonsense peddled by Marxist goofballs and other passengers in the clown car of academic identity politics. For those who don't know, the phrase "prison-industrial complex," or PIC, is a play on the military-industrial complex. The theory behind PIC is that there are powerful forces -- capitalist, racist, etc. -- pushing to lock up as many black and brown men as they can to maintain white supremacy and line the pockets of big-prison CEOs and shareholders with profits earned not just from the taxpayer but from the toil...

After outlawing special last-meal requests for prisoners on death row, the Texas prison system has now gone one better: They're outlawing meals, period, for everyone. Since April, the New York Times reports, inmates have not been provided lunches on Saturdays and Sundays. It's a cost-cutting measure: an effort to trim $2.8 million in food-related expenses from the Texas Department of Criminal Justice's 2011 budget, which makes up just a small part of the state's multi-billion-dollar budget shortfall. They've made other changes elsewhere — say powdered milk instead of actual milk, or sliced white bread instead of hamburger buns. The practice...

In a few days, exactly one week as I write this, our family will look once more into the eyes of evil and hope that our long journey for justice will be ended. Events happen throughout our lives that we remember with a clarity undimmed by the passage of time. The day was Oct. 26, 1981. I was home for my dinner break when my mother-in-law called to deliver the awful news that my wife’s sister was dead, murdered in her Greencastle, Ind., home. When I saw President Bush’s face as Andy Card told him about the 9/11 attacks, I...

MADISON, Wis. (AP) -- A federal appeals court has upheld a judge's ruling striking down a Wisconsin law banning taxpayer-funded hormone therapy for transgender inmates. The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision came Friday in a case brought by a group of male inmates who identify as female.

In a special Knesset session Wednesday an Israeli Prison Service (IPS) representative reported that security prisoners can no longer enroll for academic studies. However, other special privileges that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu promised to take away are still in force. Coalition Chairman MK Zeev Elkin told Arutz Sheva that based on what he heard at the session, it seems that the terrorists' “summer camp goes on.” There has been a public outcry about the comfortable prison conditions enjoyed by terrorist prisoners. They enjoy free internet and cellphone access and often use cellphones to describe their conditions to Israeli media. They...

Sheriff Grady Judd said the end of free underwear will save an estimated $45,000 a year in operation costs. Judd in a statement said, "$45,000 is one person's job we're saving. If inmates want to wear underwear in jail, they can buy it, just like hard-working Polk County citizens do." This isn't the first time the sheriff has invoked creative cost cuts. He eliminated peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, cornbread, coffee, juice and fresh milk from the jail menu a few years ago, saying if inmates wanted to eat those things they should stop breaking the law.

Even if you are fortunate enough to have a retreat out in the country getting to your safe haven maybe impossible during upheaval. Roads blocked by wrecked and fuelless vehicles will stop most bugouters in their tracks. Maybe you were born lucky and can make it out safely before the balloon bursts, then what? People in rural areas, will start shooting if threatened by mobs of refugees fleeing the city. Don’t expect to be welcomed with arms outstretched. Most country folks don’t trust outsiders; you will likely be greeted with a load of buckshot and not the cup of fresh...

SANTA ANA, Calif. — Nearly 100 purported gang members have been arrested, along with weapons, cash and drugs, in what law enforcement officials are calling a devastating blow on local gangs and leaders of the notorious Mexican Mafia. Among those named in one of several indictments unsealed Wednesday was Peter Ojeda, a Santa Ana native indicted in 2005 and currently in federal prison. But despite his incarceration, Ojeda is accused of continuing to hold a grip in Orange County's Latino street gangs, ordering punishment on local gangs that refused to follow his commands and giving the "green light" on rivals...

In 1984 the photographer Tom Cahill smashed a plate-glass door in a fit of fury at the San Francisco Chronicle. He had just unsuccessfully attempted to get the paper’s reporters to write about rape in America’s jails and prisons. Cahill was a desperate man at the time, tormented by flashbacks and nightmares, his personal and professional life in ruins. Cahill’s story began in 1968, when he was arrested in Texas during a peaceful antiwar protest. An Air Force vet who opposed the Vietnam War, he did not prove popular among jail staff in the heavily military town of San Antonio....

The American Civil Liberties Union wants prisoners at a South Carolina jail to have access to pornography, lawyers defending a religious freedom lawsuit claim. A suit was initially filed against the Berkeley County Jail in Moncks Corner last month for allegedly barring inmates from receiving any reading materials besides the Bible from outside the prison, which lawyers representing the prison deny. The attorneys said prison inmates are simply not allowed to read materials bound together by tape, staples, paper clips or clasps. They also aren't allowed material that could "encourage deviant sexual behavior." "If they don't like the wording in...

Computer errors prompted California prison officials to mistakenly release an estimated 450 inmates with "a high risk for violence" as unsupervised parolees in a program meant to ease overcrowding, according to the state's inspector general. More than 1,000 additional prisoners presenting a high risk of committing drug crimes, property crimes and other offenses were also let out, officials said. No attempt was made to return any of the offenders to state lockups or place them on supervised parole, said inspector general spokeswoman Renee Hansen. All of the prisoners were placed on "non-revocable parole," whose participants are not required to report...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court on Monday endorsed a court order requiring California to cut its prison population by thousands of inmates to improve health care for those who remain behind bars. The court said in a 5-4 decision that the reduction is "required by the Constitution" to correct longstanding violations of inmates' rights. Justice Anthony Kennedy, a California native, wrote the majority opinion, in which he included photos of severe overcrowding. The court's four Democratic appointees joined with Kennedy.

Justice: A 5-4 majority on the U.S. Supreme Court has just ordered California to empty its prisons of nearly a third of its prisoners because of overcrowding. The state's law-abiding citizens should be afraid — very afraid. As is often the case these days on the supposedly conservative court — it's not — the Brown v. Plata decision was made by four liberal justices, and one "conservative" swing vote, Justice Anthony Kennedy, who wrote the opinion. In it, Kennedy asserted that the overcrowding has caused "needless suffering and death," upholding a decision by the notoriously wacky Ninth Circuit Court of...

California will have to release over 30,000 inmates from its prison system to comply with a Supreme Court ruling earlier today. The court cited chronic violations of inmates’ rights in its 5-4 decision. The reductions will improve the delivery of health care services to the remaining inmates, claims the majority: The Supreme Court on Monday endorsed a court order requiring California to cut its prison population by tens of thousands of inmates to improve health care for those who remain behind bars.The court said in a 5-4 decision that the reduction is “required by the Constitution� to correct longstanding violations...

The Supreme Court ordered California on Monday to release tens of thousands of its prisoners to relieve overcrowding. It is one of the largest prison release orders in the nation's history, and it sharply split the high court. In dissent, Justice Antonin Scalia called the ruling "staggering" and "absurd." Now, he said, the majority were ordering the release of "46,000 happy-go-lucky felons." He added that "terrible things are sure to happen as a consequence of this outrageous order."

How small is the California prison population likely to become if Gov. Jerry Brown has his way? In three years, California's prison population would be 20 percent smaller. When we chatted on the phone on the issue last week -- always an experience -- Brown sounded more like his old self, a left-wing talk-show host of the 1990s, than the tough-on-crime Oakland mayor and state attorney general who followed. There are always two Jerry Browns. There's the talk-show Brown who likened American incarceration rates to "absolute oppression." A decade later, Attorney General Brown fought three federal judges, who ordered California...

An independent review says medical care remains below acceptable levels in more than two-thirds of California state prisons. The review shows just nine of the 33 adult prisons met minimum health care standards. The review is the first independent look at all the facilities in the state's prison system. It was ordered after a federal judge found that poor care was causing the death of an average of one inmate each week. The review comes as the U.S. Supreme Court considers a ruling to force California to improve the care of physically and mentally ill inmates. Mark Kleiman is a...

Did you catch any of this over there, Jimmeh? Based on new satellite imagery and personal interviews of former inmates and guards, Amnesty International describes conditions in the Nork's political prison camps as "horrific". And as the world's only heriditary communist dictatorship prepares for a transfer of power -and a potential period of instability- the Gulag-type camps appear to be growing in size... Amnesty International believes the camps have been in operation since the 1950s, yet only three people are ever known to have escaped Total Control Zones and managed to leave North Korea. About 30 are known to...

Prison guards can retire at the age of 55 and earn 85% of their final year's salary for the rest of their lives. They also continue to receive medical benefits. As a California prison guard, you can make six figures in overtime and bonuses alone. While Harvard-educated lawyers and consultants often have to work long hours with little recompense besides Chinese take-out, prison guards receive time-and-a-half whenever they work more than 40 hours a week. One sergeant with a base salary of $81,683 collected $114,334 in overtime and $8,648 in bonuses last year, and he's not even the highest paid.

Chrystia Freeland has called the US prison system an "American Gulag Archipelago." The Global Editor-at-Large of Reuters made her comment during today's Dylan Ratigan show on MSNBC. The context was a discussion of the recent WikiLeaks document dump about Gitmo, but Freeland was clearly speaking of the domestic US prison system, not our military prisons. Ratigan picked up on her theme, saying we could cut our prison costs in half if marijuana were legalized. View video after the jump [with apologies for mediocre quality]. Read more: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/mark-finkelstein#ixzz1KZr0yJV6

San Quentin inmates helped rescue a man and woman early today whose boat had capsized near the state prison, but the man was pronounced dead at a hospital, authorities said. The two left a dock on Corte Madera Creek in a 14-foot motorboat at about 10 p.m. Tuesday. Their boat soon developed engine trouble while on San Francisco Bay, authorities said. At least one of the two had been drinking, Marin County sheriff's deputies believe, and the man was not wearing a life vest. As he tried to restart the engine, he fell overboard, then tipped over the boat when...

"three federal judges in California do believe thugs released early from prison will make people safer—causing one to question if they are driven by ideology more than law."

California's bid to block a court order requiring the release or transfer of more than 40,000 inmates seemed in jeopardy Tuesday, with the U.S. Supreme Court sounding ready to force the state to significantly reduce its prison population. During heated oral arguments, a slim majority of the justices sided with advocates who said the state had not provided humane care for sick and mentally ill prisoners. Despite decades of lawsuits and promises from the governor, the justices said, the state has not reduced the severe crowding related to the problem. Some justices, however, said they feared a mass release would...

The good news is that Berkeley produces a skewed world view. The bad news is that it provides an all too accurate microcosm of academia. “Campus radicalism is back, big time,” Michael Cohen writes in the latest issue of Radical Teacher. “For the first time in a generation, massive rallies, marches, blogs, and, increasingly, student strikes, building occupations and confrontations with the police are drawing the public’s attention to the crisis in public higher education.” “On March 4 of this year, rallies in 28 states and 11 different countries testified to a growing movement to reverse the now thirty-year neoliberal...

There (are) lots of outrageous stories about people who collect public pensions after they commit crimes, but this one may take the cake: The man accused of being the notorious ” Grim Sleeper” serial killer has reportedly collected $300,000 in pension payments, and will continue to collect them until he dies. City documents obtained by L.A. Weekly show that Lonnie Franklin Jr., 57, has been collecting monthly disability pension checks from the L.A. pension system for 19 years after being injured while working as a garbage collector. The first checks, in 1991, were a little less than $900; they are...

hose familiar with the Washington Post know that the paper is a staunch defender of a very liberal vision of the separation of church and state. For example, the paper's editorial board was heavily critical of the Supreme Court's Mojave cross ruling. But when it comes to the supposed dearth of Muslim chaplains at Virginia prisons, Sunday's Metro section went into full hand-wringing mode. "Inadequate Funds for Chaplains," complained a subheader for the page B1 story by staffer Kevin Sieff. "In Va., most money goes to Protestant clergy," another subheadline for the story "Support limited for Muslims in prison"* lamented....

The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights says the Justice Department continues to stonewall investigation of the New Black Panther Party voter-intimidation case. This reflects systemic injustice at Justice. Several reports in the past week exposed a bizarre ideological campaign being pushed by the department's Civil Rights Division. First, the department apparently is adopting a policy of sending award money from successful civil rights suits not to actual victims, but to outside groups that claim to "represent" victims' interests. This clearly risks payoffs to liberal groups such as ACORN, the ACLU and the NAACP. Second, the department threatens to halt a...

Two unpleasant topics of conversation most of us avoid are the epidemic of HIV/AIDS among prison inmates and a variety of sometimes violent events resulting in transmission of the disease. Some states long ago implemented policies to protect the uninfected part of the prison population while providing exceptional medical treatment and counseling to the infected population. In South Carolina, it has worked so well since 1998 that there has only been a single transmission of HIV/AIDS to a noninfected prisoner. All that may change, however, thanks to a threat from Eric Holder's Justice Department. South Carolina received a letter from...

A Virginia inmate who warned prosecutors he would kill again if not given the death penalty for strangling his cellmate was involved in the death of another inmate, authorities said. Wise County Commonwealth's Attorney Ron Elkins confirmed late Saturday that Robert Gleason Jr. was "involved" in the death of 26-year-old Aaron Alexander Cooper, though Elkins refused to elaborate. Gleason, who was already serving a life term for murder before killing his cellmate last year, has not been charged in the death. Cooper died Wednesday in the recreation yard for inmates housed in segregation at the maximum security Red Onion State...

A former Watergate felon has the key to fighting terrorist recruitment in America's prisons: Bring in more Christians... Islamic radical groups such as al Qaeda are particularly active in prison recruitment and networking because they "see it as their duty to propagate their faith and political ideology (dawa)." To them, a prison "constitutes a potentially fruitful place for conversion and radicalization," and they "consequently exploit whatever opportunities they are offered to approach other offenders and turn them into followers of the group." ... Critics might charge that using programs like Prison Fellowship as an active part of a counterterrorism strategy...

The use of two secret, experimental prison units used to isolate Muslim inmates is unconstitutional, the Center for Constitutional Rights claims in federal court. Five inmates say they were classified as low or medium security and had relatively clean disciplinary histories. Still, because they are Muslim, they say they were put in the isolated units at either the Federal Correctional Institution in Terre Haute, Ind., or at the United States Penitentiary in Marion, Ill. "As a result, plaintiffs' familial relationships and rights of association with loved ones have been substantially impaired,"

SNIPPET: "The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) chapter in Washington State is seeking religious Muslim volunteers to work with state prison inmates. That has veteran corrections official Patrick Dunleavy concerned that the program could result in the radicalization of prisoners and create security problems. It's not the presence of Muslim volunteers, but the track record of the people and organization involved." Read more at: http://www.investigativeproject.org/1816/cair-targets-washington-state-prisons

WASHINGTON – States are getting new leeway in tallying their prisoners in the 2010 census — a move that could reshape the political map, increasing urban population numbers while reducing the figures for rural voting districts where inmates are incarcerated. The Census Bureau said this week it would release data on prison populations to states when they redraw legislative boundaries next year. Previously, the agency provided the breakdowns on group quarters, like prisons, after states finished their high-stakes redistricting. That resulted in districts with prisons getting extra representation in their legislatures, despite laws in some states that say a prison...

Who are the 300 terrorists held in U.S. prisons? By: Byron York Chief Political CorrespondentFebruary 5, 2010 "The Bush administration used the criminal justice system to convict more than 300 individuals on terrorism-related charges," writes Attorney General Eric Holder in a new letter to Republican critics in Congress. The letter is part of the Obama administration's aggressive defense of its decision to grant full American constitutional rights to al Qaeda soldier Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the accused Christmas Day bomber. That defense boils down to one sentence: Bush did it, too.Republicans on Capitol Hill object. They argue that one of the...

In a four-page review, the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst's Office said today that lawmakers should reject Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's proposed ballot measure to dedicate more money to public universities than prisons. "It is an unnecessary, ill-conceived measure that would do serious harm to the budget process," the LAO report concludes. Schwarzenegger's constitutional amendment would require the state to spend no more than 7 percent of general fund money on corrections and no less than 10 percent on the University of California and California State University systems. In 2009-10, the state is spending 5.7 percent of general fund money on UC and...

SNIPPET: "U.S. intelligence officials believe there are dozens -- perhaps hundreds - of Americans who have been in e-mail contact with the radical Yemeni cleric who is believed to have inspired and directed both the Fort Hood shooter and the failed Christmas Day airline bomber, the Investigative Project on Terrorism has learned. Efforts to learn the details of that communication, or even to target Anwar Al-Awlaki militarily, may be hindered by his status as an American citizen."

Caller: Thank you for taking my call. I'm pondering the unemployment numbers and this healthcare bill with the mandate. I'm wondering if this will exacerbate the prison overpopulation problem? Tom Ashbrook: What do you mean? Caller: If there's over 10 percent unemployment, I don't think American prisons handle that many people can they? Host: Will people have to steal to pay their healthcare? What are you saying? Caller: If they fail to meet the mandate they get thrown in prison. Host: He's only half facetious, I think. This will be a real requirement. What happens if people can't or don't...

Bristol County Sheriff Thomas Hodgson’s controversial program to charge inmates for rent, haircuts, medical visits and high school equivalency tests raised $750,000, but outraged inmate advocates who said the fees violated their constitutional rights and amounted to an unlawful tax. Five years after a judge struck down the program - ruling that county sheriffs do not have the authority to charge such fees - Hodgson is reviving the proposal. The state’s highest court will hear arguments in Hodgson’s appeal today. When he initially imposed the fees in 2002, Hodgson said he believed they could help teach inmates to accept responsibility...

...Earlier this summer it was announced that Standish Max would close as part of a reorganization by the Michigan Department of Corrections. This would result in a loss of jobs for about 350 people. But questions are being asked as to whether bringing Gitmo detainees there is the best way to offset this economic quagmire. Many of the locals have safety concerns...Gordon Cuclullu and his terrorism expert looked at the security issues and found some points of concern: Under normal circumstances this would be a proper maximum security facility. Designed effectively to keep prisoners in, not focused on potential outside...

Officials at the Moose Lake Sex Offenders Program began unbolting the two dozen 50-inch plasma television sets at the center on Tuesday, just hours after Gov. Tim Pawlenty called the purchase "boneheaded" and ordered a search to find out who made the decision. The TVs, costing $1,576 apiece with $706 mounting brackets, were ordered last October and installed at the new $45 million treatment center when it opened in July. State officials said the televisions, which were mounted in common areas, made it easier to supervise patients at the 400-bed facility. But when Pawlenty learned of the purchase in a...

For up to four hours a day, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the self-proclaimed mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, can sit outside in the Caribbean sun and chat through a chain-link fence with the detainee in the neighboring exercise yard at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Mohammed can also use that time to visit a media room to watch movies of his choice, read newspapers and books, or play handheld electronic games. He and other detainees have access to elliptical machines and stationary bikes. At Guantanamo, such recreational activities interrupt an otherwise bleak existence, according to a Pentagon report of conditions at Camp...

In this Friday, Sept. 24, 2009 picture, Albert Peterson with the Two Rivers Authority stands outside an empty jail that Hardin, Mont. built for $27 million. The authority wants a California security company, American Police Force, to take over the facility. Michael Hilton pitched himself to the city as a military veteran turned private sector entrepreneur - a California defense contractor with extensive government contracts who promised to turn the rural city's empty jail into a cash cow. But now a much different picture of Hilton is emerging from public documents and interviews with his associates and legal adversaries. (AP...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger will file a court-mandated plan today to ease prison overcrowding that appears to defy demands by a panel of three federal judges, the latest salvo in a long-running feud between state and federal officials over California's corrections system. The federal judges last month ordered the state to reduce its prison population by 40,000 inmates over the next two years in response to lawsuits alleging that overcrowding has led to unconstitutional and inadequate levels of medical and mental health care. Schwarzenegger's Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation intends to file an inmate reduction plan with the court today, but...

(English-language translation) Havana - The Cuban authorities authorized the celebration of Evangelical services and Catholic Masses in all of the country's prisons. Cuba Council of Churches (CIC) spokesman José Aurelio Paz told AP on Tuesday that they were informed of the decision on September 10. He added that, on that day, CIC leaders met with Religious Affairs officials from the Communist Party, including [Religious Affairs] head Caridad Diego, and with prison officials. "It involved an informative meeting," Paz stated. He explained that, prior to the decision, there was "personal-level religious attention", in other words, when a prisoner or his family...

California Assembly Speaker Karen Bass plans to strip the most controversial provisions from a Senate-approved plan that would have trimmed the state's prison population by 27,000 inmates. The Assembly version would keep about 10,000 more inmates behind bars and leave the state with a new, nearly $200 million budget hole, Bass said early Friday. Bass said the new plan -- to be considered Monday -- would do away with proposals by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to allow home detention with electronic monitoring for inmates with less than 12 months to serve, who are over age 60 or who are medically incapacitated....

In a visit to the Chino facility where inmates rioted Aug. 8, the governor complains that politicians have 'swept the problem under the rug for so long.' Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, after touring the site where a major prison riot occurred 12 days ago, said Wednesday that the state's prison system is "collapsing under its own weight" and called on lawmakers to make changes that could reduce overcrowding and spending on inmates. The governor and his corrections chief, Matt Cate, walked through the destruction at a housing unit for prisoners at the California Institution for Men in Chino, where 1,300 inmates...

CHINO, Calif. — Blood-soaked mattresses, singed bedding and abandoned medical supplies littered the campus of a Southern California prison Tuesday, a testament to the mayhem and violence of a weekend riot that shut down part of the institution and injured about 175 inmates, some critically. Prison officials staged a tour of the devastation at the California Institution for Men in Chino to reveal the extent of the racially motivated riot that broke out Saturday evening and raged for four hours before guards could bring it under control. Seven of the eight units in the prison's Reception Center West, one of...