Free Republic

**SNIP** That troubling question is increasingly being repeated at parole hearings across California as the number of inmates with life sentences who are granted release skyrockets under Gov. Jerry Brown. Currently nearly 2,000 murderers, hit men and robbers who spent decades locked up and now range from middle-aged to elderly are trying to find their way. Most succeed, but each month a few more fail, returning to the drugs and crime that put them in prison and raising public safety concerns. California is one of four states in which the governor has final authority over parole decisions. A Times analysis...

The ACLU calls the U.S. the largest jailer in the world, holding roughly 25 percent of the world’s prison population despite the fact that national population represents only 5 percent of the world’s. After a three-year decline in the incarcerated population that began in 2010—a hopeful counter to decades of growth—the number of people in prison in the United States increased again last year, according to a report released on Friday by the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS). The U.S. has the highest prison population rate in the world, according to the U.K.-based International Centre for Prison Studies’ most recent...

The US corrections population dropped to its lowest point since 2003, US Attorney General Eric Holder announced Friday. The number of Americans in prison, jail, parole, or probation dropped to less than 6.9 million in 2013, down 41,500 compared to 2012 and hitting the lowest point since 2003, according to a report from the Bureau of Justice Statistics. Until 2008, the corrections population had been steadily growing for decades as all levels of government enforced tough-on-crime policies — particularly against drug offenses — that tied up more people in the criminal justice system. But states and the federal government, facing...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)President Barack Obama commuted the sentences of eight federal drug defendants on Wednesday, including four who were set to die in federal prison, as part of a new initiative to reduce harsh sentences for nonviolent crimes. Sidney Earl Johnson, Jr., Rickey Marcell McCall, Larry Nailor and Israel Abel Torres had received life sentences and were going to die behind bars. But now Obama has commuted their sentences and those of four others who were convicted of drug crimes, and all eight inmates will be released in 2015. Obama has taken heat for not making full use of his clemency and...

A divided federal appeals court on Tuesday overturned a ruling ordering Massachusetts prison officials to provide taxpayer-funded sex-reassignment surgery for an inmate convicted of murder. Michelle Kosilek, born Robert Kosilek, is serving a life sentence for killing spouse Cheryl Kosilek in 1990. Kosilek has waged a protracted legal battle for the surgery she says is necessary to relieve the mental anguish caused by gender-identity disorder. [Snip] Kosilek, now 65, told The Associated Press in 2011 that the surgery is a medical necessity. "Everybody has the right to have their health care needs met, whether they are in prison or out...

One of the senior officials of terror group ISIS has shared in an interview that it was the American Camp Bucca prison in southern Iraq that facilitated the birth of the terror group, as it gave jihadists the unique opportunity to congregate and build their plans and ideology. The revelations came in an extensive interview The Guardian conducted with a man who chose to identify himself by the name of Abu Ahmed. The man admitted that he has grown disillusioned with many of the extreme actions ISIS has taken over the past year. Bucca, established in the wake of the...

Two years ago in February, a 59-year-old federal inmate went under the knife at St. Jude Medical Center in Fullerton to have his diseased left kidney removed. He emerged from the procedure with his tumor-laden kidney still intact. The surgeon, Dr. Charles Coonan Streit, a urologist who has had his license for 41 years, mistakenly had taken out his healthy right kidney. Last week, the California Medical Board disciplined Streit for the error, placing him on probation for three years. According to the medical board, on the day of the operation Streit relied on memory to decide which kidney to...

Gotnews.com has finally confirmed that Louis Head, the stepfather of Michael Brown, is a member of the Bloods gang. Through text messages a top-ranked Ferguson cop confirmed that Head and the Brown family are members of the notorious street gang. Head called for Ferguson to riot.

Today in Texas, former prosecutor and judge Ken Anderson pled guilty to intentionally failing to disclose evidence in a case that sent an innocent man, Michael Morton, to prison for the murder of his wife. When trying the case as a prosecutor, Anderson possessed evidence that may have cleared Morton, including statements from the crime's only eyewitness that Morton wasn't the culprit. Anderson sat on this evidence, and then watched Morton get convicted. While Morton remained in prison for the next 25 years, Anderson's career flourished, and he eventually became a judge. In today's deal, Anderson pled to criminal contempt,...

It sounds like a radical idea: Stop incarcerating women, and close down women’s prisons. But in Britain, there is a growing movement, sponsored by a peer in the House of Lords, to do just that. The argument is actually quite straightforward: There are far fewer women in prison than men to start with — women make up just 7 percent of the prison population. This means that these women are disproportionately affected by a system designed for men. But could women’s prisons actually be eliminated in the United States, where the rate of women’s incarceration has risen by 646 percent...

**SNIP** After his conviction, Wright faced up to eight years in prison, but in September, a judge sentenced him to just 90 days and barred him from ever holding public office again. On Friday, Wright reported to the Los Angeles County jail to begin serving his term. But California’s prison system is overflowing with so many inmates that they have no room for a nonviolent offender with no prior convictions. Wright was processed, booked and released after just over an hour. A spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County sheriff’s department told the Sacramento Bee that Wright received no special treatment....

On Friday afternoon, family spokesman Jonathan Franks told the AP that captive Marine Sgt. Andrew Tahmooressi will be released from a Mexican prison immediately, per a judge's order. Sgt. Tahmooressi served two tours in Afghanistan and was back home in the United States when he inadvertently crossed the border into Mexico while his legally purchased and legally owned guns were in his truck. He was imprisoned in Mexico and has been there for almost 8 months. After the judge made the ruling, which did not address the question of guit or innocence of the charges against him, the family issued...

I’m sure they’re only moderates who were arrested for crimes of peace. (via Religion of Peace) Muslims in French prisons reach up to 60% claims France’s UMP party deputy Guillaume Larrive.The conclusion drawn by Larrive in a report as part of an action plan “against Islamist radicalisation in prison” This action plan is now likely to involve several hundred prisoners, Le Figaro reported.The report estimates that 60% of the prison population in France, that is to say 40,000 prisoners, can be considered Muslim, “culturally or originally”.French deputy Larrive, who has worked on the budget of the Prison Service for 2015,...

A prison has been blasted for taking 50 minutes to call in medics after two brutal inmates strangled a child killer in his cell. The pair of lags, who were already serving life sentences for murder, kidnapped and throttled Subhan Anwar on Valentines Day last year. But it took authorities almost an hour to call paramedics and a further 30 minutes for them to reach Long Lartin Prison's rural location in South Littleton, Worcs.

Paul is the first potential 2016 contender to visit the city.Sen. Rand Paul met with civil rights leaders Friday in Ferguson, Missouri, the city torn apart by racial unrest following the August shooting of an unarmed black teenager by a white police officer. During his visit, the Republican Senator, who is seen as a likely presidential candidate, stated his concerns about long prison sentences for nonviolent crimes, the loss of voting rights for felons and military programs to give unused equipment to local police departments. “I wanted to find out what we could do to make the situation better,” Paul...

Members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee said Wednesday that they believe Mexico will soon release Sgt. Andrew Tahmooressi, the U.S. Marine who has been held prisoner in Mexico after he crossed into that country carrying weapons in violation of Mexican law. Chairman Ed Royce (R-Calif.) said he met with Tahmooressi in prison back in June, and has continued to press Mexican authorities for his release. Royce said he made a breakthrough in a talk last week with Mexican authorities about Tahmooressi, who has been diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. “Last week I had a good and productive conversation...

1924: Pep, “The Cat-Murdering Dog” Pep "The Cat-Murdering Dog" was a black Labrador Retriever admitted to Eastern State Penitentiary on August 12, 1924. Prison folklore tells us that Pennsylvania Governor Gifford Pinchot used his executive powers to sentence Pep to Life Without Parole for killing his wife’s cherished cat. Prison records support this story: Pep’s inmate number (C-2559) is skipped in prison intake logs and inmate records. The Governor told a different story. He said Pep had been sent to Eastern to act as a mascot for the prisoners. He and the Warden, Herbert “Hard-Boiled” Smith, were friends. Pep was...

HonorAir founder Jeff Miller is launching a fundraising effort aimed at helping to free the U.S. Marine imprisoned in Mexico after crossing the border in a vehicle that contained legally registered weapons. Miller said Thursday that he wanted to help raise money for Marine Sgt. Andrew Tahmooressi, but wanted to get the family's blessing. He got that on Wednesday when he heard from Tahmooressi's mother, Jill Tahmooressi, who lives in Florida and has been fighting for her son's release for four months. "We're very appreciative," she said. Jill Tahmooressi said she welcomed the fundraising, which has a large following among...

All criminal justice systems face competing tensions of protecting public safety while not overburdening taxpayers, and Michigan’s is no exception. Calls to reduce financial costs often face scrutiny on the grounds of potentially compromised security. In a Lansing hearing on July 1, which I was able to attend, the Council of State Governments brought to Michigan several suggestions related to criminal sentencing, claiming that these policy changes could ease the financial burden on taxpayers while simultaneously maintaining or even improving public safety. The Council advocates for the greater use of “supervision terms” as part of criminal sentences, with close monitoring...

Leftists - namely the socio-communist end of the totalitarian bloc, the other being the Nazi-fascist - keep telling us how terrible, inhumane and even ineffective prisons are. The truth, as usual, is the opposite of what they say. Not only prisons maintain offenders in the impossibility to offend while the sentence lasts and, if there is a high probability of punishment (which, alas, is not the case in Britain now), the criminals' knowledge of arrest and imprisonment acts as a deterrent, making jails the most effective way to reduce crime, so they are good for the innocent. They are...