Free Republic

The coronavirus infection spreading across the United States prison system is throwing Ross Ulbricht’s confinement into sharp relief. Found guilty of seven charges including money laundering, conspiracy to traffic narcotics and computer hacking, the controversial founder of the Silk Road is currently serving a double life sentence plus 40 years, without the possibility of parole. As the pandemic worsens conditions for the nation’s large prison population, Ross spends 22 hours a day behind bars in Tucson, Ariz., where he’s currently being held. Outside visits are stopped so Ross’s mother, Lyn, and other loved ones, who work tirelessly for his release,...

The division within America has not been this bad since the Civil War.  At the center of this division and destruction, is a nationwide systemic discrepancy that has existed for decades. And it finally erupted. We are witnessing violent protests, assaults, rioting, looting, and criminal damage to properties that continue to plague Democrat-run cities. At the tip of this iceberg is the reckoning of criminal justice reform.  In an ideal world, criminal justice is the delivery of justice to those who have gotten away with committing crimes. But there is much more to it than that. Our criminal justice system...

After kneeling for close to nine minutes before the cameras Monday morning, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi announced the Justice in Policing Bill of 2020. Following bipartisan support for reforms, some including Black Caucus Chair Rep. Bass (D-Calif.), hoped for a cooperative tackling of the issue. First steps by Pelosi, however, suggest that this attempt is falling into the same partisan trap previous attempts at reform have. Rumors began swirling the morning of Pelosi’s announcement that Republicans had been blocked from contributing to the immense bill. Rep. Greg Steube (R-Fla.) confirmed that was the case. “As a Member of...

Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris said Friday she won't take part in a forum being held a historically black college in Columbia, South Carolina this weekend after President Donald Trump was given a "Bipartisan Justice Award." “As the only candidate who attended an HBCU, I know the importance that these spaces hold for young Black Americans," Harris, who was slated to participate in Second Step Presidential Justice Forum at Benedict College on Saturday, said in a statement. The California senator cited the fact that only a limited number of students from the school were allowed to attend Trump's remarks as...

Steffeny “Stet” Frazier, a 51-year-old former crack cocaine dealer, says he “most definitely” will vote for President Trump next year if he’s not returned to prison to complete a life sentence that was ended in August under the Trump-signed First Step Act. Frazier, an outspoken Trump supporter and father of eight, the youngest born after his arrest at age 26, is among a handful of people released under the new law who now risk being returned to prison as prosecutors appeal the release of some large-scale crack dealers. Frazier's supporters say his case is a potential injustice and want prosecutors...

Just a few months since passage of the so-called First Step Act, we now know that the kinds of convicted criminals actually gaining early freedom are not the docile mice promised in the big sales pitches for this trumpeted bipartisan bill passed by the split Congress in December and signed by President Trump. The proposal was loudly billed to secure early releases of first-time, low-level, nonviolent drug offenders to home confinement on grounds that they’d gotten raw sentencing deals at a time when America was tamping down the crack cocaine-fueled national crime plagues of the early 1990s.But alas, it turns...

President Trump's criminal justice reform law will release some 2,200 federal inmates next week, and reform supporters are finding broad interest among employers, including Alaska's seafood industry and retail giant Amazon. An effort to line up employment, guided by evidence it reduces recidivism, features job fairs and prison advertising ahead of a mass release July 19. Inmates gaining jobs could help provide political cover for Trump after some Republican senators and law enforcement groups said reforms would endanger public safety. A leading work option is emerging in Alaska, where thousands of people may be hooked up with seasonal work thanks...

President Trump began the month hosting a White House celebration with people freed from prison by the First Step Act. He told the April Fools' Day gathering the White House would work on a Second Step Act "right away." Despite the day, Trump was not joking. But he was also not correct. Sources tell the Washington Examiner that the White House is in fact not preparing a Second Step Act package to follow the landmark criminal justice reform law, which is Trump's only major bipartisan legislative achievement. “There’s definitely not a Second Step Act,” said a source who works on...

President Trump announced plans Monday for a Second Step Act focused on easing employment barriers for formerly incarcerated people. "We are proving we're a nation that believes in redemption," Trump said at a White House event celebrating people released under the First Step Act, which he signed in December. Trump said the "second step" legislation will feature a $88 million funding request for prisoner social reentry programs.

Catherine Toney began February in prison and ended the month with a job at Walmart after White House adviser Jared Kushner called the Arkansas-based retailer on her behalf. Toney, 55, is believed to be the first woman freed by the First Step Act, which President Trump signed in December. She was released Feb. 1 after serving 16 years, benefiting from the law's retroactive crack cocaine sentence reductions. Toney will join Trump on Monday for an event celebrating the criminal justice reform law, his first major bipartisan policy achievement. Other recently released inmates were invited to attend.

President Trump shortened the sentences of thousands of prisoners by signing the First Step Act days before Christmas. But one week later, inmates and their frustrated families say they are afraid the gift won’t be delivered in time to hasten release dates. Silence from the Federal Bureau of Prisons is creating fear that foot-dragging will eat into reductions mandated by Trump's most significant bipartisan policy achievement. The new law gives many prisoners an extra seven days off their sentences for each year of good behavior, but it's unclear when authorities will make the calculations. “Literally, my brother has packed his...

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...

President Donald Trump and conservatives in Congress earned a historic victory this week by enacting the First Step Act. The landmark bill provides modest yet much-needed prison and sentencing reform modeled on successful reforms already passed in red states. On Tuesday night, senators passed the First Step Act with support from law enforcement professionals, the faith community, business groups, and the White House, by a vote of 87-12. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., deserves credit for bringing the bill up for a vote. Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, a former federal prosecutor and leading advocate of the legislation, said, “American...

Its all played out like a WWE wrestling show produced by President Trump's close friend Vince McMahon, but the drama over border wall funding is moving towards its climax as we approach Christmas.... General Jim Mattis is leaving as Secretary of Defense.... On to Afghanistan where President Trump has decided to pull out half of the US troops in that country.... This week US Afghanistan representative Zalmay Khalilzad met with the Taliban for two days of talks.... The Justice Department is charging two Chinese men with hacking into computer networks of private companies and government agencies..... Israel's "Haaretz" newspaper reported...

The Senate is expected to vote Tuesday on an amendment that would federally legalize marijuana by allowing states to regulate their own medical and recreational pot markets. But even one senator can block a vote on the amendment, which would address a longstanding conflict between federal and state law. Sen. Cory Gardner, D-Colo., is seeking to attach the measure to the First Step Act, a bundle of prison, prisoner re-entry, and sentencing reforms that senators voted 81-12 to advance Monday.

Senators linked arms and voted Monday to advance a new bill combining sentencing and prison reforms, setting up final passage later this week and creating the groundwork for a major bipartisan compromise. President Trump had urged GOP Senate leaders to drop their longstanding objections and allow the bipartisan bill to reach the floor, and Majority Leader Mitch McConnell finally agreed, after the bill was changed a final time to win over some additional conservatives. With those changes in hand, the measure cleared a potential filibuster on a 82-12 vote, far more than the 60 votes needed. The Senate will now...

Phil Zodhiates has been a friend and mentor to many conservative non-profits throughout America. It was he who helped make Col. Allen West's election to Congress in 2010 possible, as was the case with many other conservative candidates. Phil saved a child from terrible abuse and gave a ride to the child's mother from Virginia to Buffalo, NY. For this he has been ordered to report to federal prison tomorrow, with a three year sentence. May G-d Almighty make a miracle for him and free him. The entire story is sickening. It is also a prime example of how hedonism...

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...

President Trump said Thursday that he supports prison reform and that Attorney General Jeff Sessions' opposition doesn't represent his administration's position. "If he doesn't [support reform], then he gets overruled by me. Because I make the decision, he doesn't," Trump said during a phone interview broadcast on "Fox and Friends." Sessions, an opponent of criminal justice reform, argues the pending First Step Act would make the country less safe, threatening one of the top priorities of presidential adviser and Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner.