Free Republic

source JANIFESTThe "mainstream media" love to pretend that they represent the sensible middle ground of the ideological spectrum, but any extended look at their coverage reveals that they are incapable of finding an unsuitable extreme on the left. For example, some leftists openly advocate for the end of prisons. Are they questioned for their sanity? No. They're given platforms for their "poetry." On the Aug. 4 episode of "PBS NewsHour," they celebrated a man named Jorge Antonio Renaud. On the "Latino Rebels" website last year, Renaud explicitly declared, "I'm going to speak about prison abolition, which is the idea that...

As biological males who identify as transgender women or nonbinary are being transferred upon request to female prisons in California, biologically female inmates have been assaulted by these new transfers, says Lauren Adams, Legal Counsel for the Women's Liberation Front (WoLF). Following a California law that went into effect on Jan. 1 allowing inmates to use their claimed gender identity to determine whether they are incarcerated in men's or women's facilities, there have been 261 prison transfer applications. All but six were to be transferred to women's prisons, Fox News reported. At least 26 men have been transferred, but it...

The Louisiana Legislature voted overwhelmingly Thursday to move approximately $300 million annually from a fund that pays for higher education and health care to a fund that pays for large transportation projects. Supporters have said the spending will not only improve the state’s infrastructure system, but that it will also create construction jobs. Critics are concerned the proposal would exacerbate an already expected budget deficit in July 2025 affecting state universities, hospitals and other health care programs. Gov. John Bel Edwards needs to sign the legislation for it to become law. Edwards hasn’t decided if he approves of the bill...

SEATTLE (AP) — A federal jury is deciding whether one of the nation's biggest private prison companies must pay minimum wage — instead of $1 a day — to immigration detainees who perform tasks like cooking and cleaning at its jail in Washington state.... ...GEO's response is that the detainees simply aren't employees. Even if they were, the company says, it would be unlawfully discriminatory for Washington to require GEO to pay them minimum wage — now $13.69 an hour — when the state doesn't pay minimum wage to inmates who work at its own prisons or other detention facilities....

A former Tennessee governor's administration helped fund a contract murder of a key federal witness decades ago while embroiled in the state's largest political scandal, law enforcement officials announced Wednesday. The new details revealed for the first time Wednesday have elements that ring of a movie: a trusted ally of union boss Jimmy Hoffa gunned down after testifying about a corrupt governor selling prison pardons and a gunman who donned a wig and blackface to throw authorities off the scent. Investigators in Hamilton County, which encompasses Chattanooga, have been chipping away at the 42-year-old cold case of Samuel Pettyjohn since...

Portland, Oregon Mayor Ted Wheeler's decision to try to mollify the violent mobs besieging the city by agreeing to "defund the police" is taking a big toll of black lives. The budget for police was cut by $27 million and the number of officers reduced by 120. Crime is now considerably worse than it was last year. Shootings for the first four months of this year have doubled to 348 compared to the same months last year. Homicides have increased seven-fold since last year. A disproportionate number of those murdered have been blacks. A peaceful demonstration to mark the anniversary...

In 2021, if you are a pessimist and a cynic, you will invariably be proven right. I mention this because in April I wrote that California’s new law placing so-called “transgender women” in women’s prisons put women at risk. Abigail Shrier, who has written about transgender pressure on girls, reports that women in California’s prisons who have had to share space with so-called “transgender” women have indeed felt at risk. This matters to everyone because, if the Democrats do away with the filibuster, they will pass the Equality Act which, in turn, will place all women in America at risk,...

Eleven correction officers were injured this past week from multiple inmate attacks at Rikers Island Davoeron Complex in New York, the New York Daily News reported. ...Correction Officers’ Benevolent Association President Benny Boscio Jr. says that ending solitary confinement, which Mayor Bill de Blasio (D) and Correction Department Commissioner Cynthia Brann are saying they will do, is contributing to the rise in attacks. “Assaults on our officers have skyrocketed up by more than 23% over last year and instead of allowing us to separate violent offenders who commit attacks like this, this administration wants to eliminate punitive segregation completely so...

Detroit would not be the first city to have its sanctuary status come under scrutiny due to the actions of a criminal illegal migrant. Authorities sometimes respond by hiding migration status.To reverse former President Donald Trump’s immigration policies, President Biden is working with Democrats in Congress on “sweeping immigration legislation” that includes an eight-year path to citizenship for an claimed estimate of 11 million illegal immigrants. Such drastic reform must be supported by facts, which are hotly debated, and even purposely withheld.Democrats’ sunny population estimation falls in line with the Pew Research Center’s assessment that 10.5 million illegal immigrants resided...

The administration is now claiming "technical difficulties" in supporting President Trump's designation against the Chinese Communist Party.The Uyghurs in China had a friend in President Trump and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. They pressured Beijing over the concentration camps that currently hold over a million Muslim and Christian minorities and publicly condemned the Chinese Communist Party for “genocide.” It initially appeared the Biden administration would continue this stance, but new reports indicate they’re looking for a way out of the designation.They’re citing “technical flaws” as a way to withdraw the genocide designation. According to Just The News:“The State Department...

... Joe Biden on Tuesday signed four executive actions pertaining to racial equity, including phasing out the use of private prisons at the federal level. "We have never fully lived up to the founding principles of this nation, to state the obvious, that all people are created equal and have a right to be treated equally throughout their lives," Biden said just before signing the actions. ...

California has adopted transgender reforms into law, including allowing biological males who identify as female to be placed in women's prisons, and a fund using state revenue for gender-transition drugs and surgeries. Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a law Saturday that requires the Golden state to let inmates who identify as transgender, nonbinary, or intersex be housed on the basis of "gender identity" instead of biological sex. The phrase "gender identity" has been used in public policy to describe a transgender-identifying person's internal feelings about their sex but is not informed by chromosomes. The California Department of Correction and Rehabilitation is...

California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom continues to sign radical and dangerous legislation passed by the Democrat-dominated State Senate. President Trump's nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court was the perfect cover for Newsom to sign legislation allowing California inmates to be assigned to prison based on their gender identity. What could possibly go wrong? California is closed down, on fire, in debt, and its green electric grid is causing rolling blackouts. But it's full speed ahead on the leftist agenda for the Democrat-controlled Senate and Gov. Newsom. The new bill abandons the long-established practice of assigning inmates to...

In America today, millions of churchgoers are not allowed to practice their faith in their place of worship and certain business owners are not allowed to welcome customers, but hardened criminals are being released from prison. This insanity is producing predictably deadly results. Under the guise of protecting prisoners from the spread of Covid-19, large numbers of dangerous criminals are being freed from custody. This is creating a horrific situation that is endangering the public and has now led to the death of a witness in a rape case. In Alexandria, Virginia, rape suspect Ibrahim E. Bouaichi was released from...

Some localities are now threatening jail time for people who do not wear masks under the unproven science of stopping the spread of SARS-CoV-2. The contorted irony is that this same virus is being used as a pretext to release criminals from jails and prisons to stop an epidemic in confined areas. Well, it turns out there is a lower death rate from COVID-19 in jails than in the general population. Consequently, the coronavirus bloodbath in jails and prisons has not materialized, but the spike in crime from prisoners’ release certainly has. Writing in the Wall Street Journal, my friend...

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D-Mich) issued an executive order cutting $115 million from the State Police budget. In addition, she also cut $392 million from the Department of Corrections. She characterized the cuts as a "crime reduction" measure. "I got the idea from the way we are recording and reporting the coronavirus statistics," she said. "The more tests we take the more COVID-positive cases we find. This makes the pandemic look worse than it really is. Well, what if the same is true of our state's crime statistics? If we put fewer police out there fewer crimes will be uncovered. If...

You would think after the insanity that was CHAZ/CHOP, Seattle might have taken a hard look at their relationship with law and order. You would be wrong. Seattle is in King County, and the County Executive’s Office is moving ahead with plans to “abolish prisons.” A leaked email published by Christopher F. Rufo, contributing editor at City Journal, shows active plans to reduce both adult and juvenile detention and close the county jail in Seattle. The juvenile detention center would be converted to house other programs by 2025. According to Rufo, this plan will eliminate 60% of the county’s jail...

As gun violence and murders continued to spike in New York City, Democrat Mayor Bill de Blasio declared Wednesday that his city is “safe” and “better” because the number of criminals in jail is at the lowest level since 1946. Mayor de Blasio made the claim at a signing ceremony for six new police reform bills: “People said that if we reduced incarceration and ended the era of mass incarceration, we would be endangered. It was the other way around, my friends. We now have fewer people in our jails than any time since World War II and we are...

With about a third of San Quentin’s inmates now infected with the coronavirus after a transfer of prisoners from a Southern California correctional facility overrun by the illness, Marin County officials revealed Monday that a death row inmate found dead last week in his cell tested positive for COVID-19. 1,059 inmates and 102 correctional and medical staff have tested positive for the virus. On Monday, 22 inmates were being treated at the county’s hospitals, officials said.

Newsom is proposing to significantly shrink the footprint of California’s prison system, partly because of massive budget cuts prompted by the pandemic but also because of philosophy. The revised budget he sent to state lawmakers this week closing two state prisons in the coming years; cutting nearly one in five of the 43 inmate firefighter camps; and eventually closing all three state-run juvenile prisons. He’s also seeking unspecified increases to sentencing credits that allow inmates to leave prison more quickly. And he proposes to shorten parole to a maximum of two years, down from five years for felonies, and let...