Free Republic

Since the Pennsylvania police arrested Anthony Kofalt last March for walking out of a Walmart with 21 boxes of Crest White Strips he had not paid for, his wife, Heather, has spent $3,000 — about $60 a week — on phone calls to the prisons and jails where he has been held. The cost of a 15-minute call is $12.95, although Mr. Kofalt is in a prison only a few hours’ drive from his wife’s home in Franklin, Pa. The cost for a similar non-prison call would be about 60 cents. And every time Ms. Kofalt deposits $25 into the...

Mikhail Ivan Gallatinov, 40 and his fellow male inmate Marc Goodwin, 31, tied the knot in the children's play alcove at their prison's visitor centre

CHICAGO (AP) — Former U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. was released from an Alabama federal prison early Thursday, two years after pleading guilty to spending $750,000 in campaign money on personal items, his father said. The Rev. Jesse Jackson described his son's release from the minimum security federal prison camp at Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, Alabama, as a "joyous reunion" and said the younger Jackson was doing "very well."

According to the Daily Caller, not signing the “formal separation agreement” (OF-109) upon departing employment at the State Department can have “dire consequences.”These comments come from well known State Department security agent and whistle-blower, Richard Higbie: “Ramifications for lower-level State Department employees include the withholding of retirement benefits and possible investigations conducted by the agency into why employees declined to sign the form, whistle-blower Richard Higbie says.” Per the State Department’s own rules, employees leaving the agency must sign the OF-109 document, certifying that turned over any and all documents in their possession related to any State Department business.If what...

Federal authorities are investigating the grisly discovery of the body of a man found hanging by a bed sheet Thursday morning... Local officers were searching for Otis James Byrd, a 54-year-old black man, who vanished on March 2. ....it remained unclear whether the death was a homicide or a suicide, but he confirmed that the man "had a bed sheet tied around his neck." ....Byrd spent just over 25 years in prison for the Feb. 1980 murder of Lucille Trim in Claiborne County, according to Mississippi Department of Corrections records cited by the Clarion-Ledger newspaper. The records show he robbed...

The Scientist Who Wanted To Bring A Death Row Inmate Back From The Dead Dr. Robert E. Cornish is probably best known for his 1930s revivification experiments with dogs, in which he claimed to bring dogs back from clinical death. He wanted to try a similar procedure on humans — and when a death row inmate volunteered, Cornish petitioned the state of California to let him play re-animator. Cornish's dog experiments would make most dog lovers cringe. Cornish would suffocate the dogs until they were clinically dead, and then he would place the bodies on a teeter board, rocking the...

SAN FRANCISCO — J.C.X. Simon—one of the so-called "Zebra Killers" convicted of multiple murders of white San Franciscans in the 1970s—has died, prison officials said Friday. Simon, 69, was pronounced dead at San Quentin prison at 11:59 p.m. Thursday after being found unresponsive in his cell, Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation officials said. The cause of death is unknown pending the results of an autopsy.

This morning on CNN Ben Carson was asked if homosexuality is a choice and he didn’t shy away from answering it, saying he absolutely believes it is a choice. When asked why, he suggested that one example of this being a choice is that some people who go into prison straight and come out gay. If it’s not a choice then how could that happen? Watch: Video Link As I said, heads are exploding over his comments. If you just search Google News you’ll find dozens of articles already written on it. And most of them are negative, as you...

Conservative media personality Glenn Beck declared renowned neurosurgeon and potential 2016 GOP presidential candidate Ben Carson's presidential career over and branded him a "lunatic" last week for calling homosexuality "absolutely" a choice because of prison sex. Carson told CNN last Wednesday that he believed homosexuality is "absolutely" a choice citing as an example that "a lot of people who go into prison go into prison straight — and when they come out, they're gay…So, did something happen while they were in there?" Reacting to Carson's comments, on his radio show Friday, Beck called them "ridiculous". "Goodbye to his presidential career,"...

After 500 comments about his prison-sex theory of orientation, I figured you’d be interested in an update. Having taken a ferocious beating in the media for the better part of a day, Carson finally says no mas: “I also believe that our Constitution protects everybody, regardless of their beliefs, and that includes people who are gay,” Mr. Carson continued. “I have no problem with them doing whatever they want to do. I’m just not willing to change the definition of marriage for anybody, because once you do that, you have to change it for everyone else who comes along....

Washington (CNN)Retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson apologized for commenting Wednesday that prisoners' changes after they leave jail proves being gay is a choice, but said that the science is still murky on the issue. In a statement, Carson said he "realized that my choice of language does not reflect fully my heart on gay issues." "I do not pretend to know how every individual came to their sexual orientation. I regret that my words to express that concept were hurtful and divisive. For that I apologize unreservedly to all that were offended," he added. 

By Fox News. Potential 2016 presidential candidate Ben Carson apologized Wednesday for saying homosexuality was a lifestyle choice.“I do not pretend to know how every individual came to their sexual orientation,” Carson said on his Facebook page late Wednesday afternoon. “I regret that my words to express that concept were hurtful and divisive. For that I apologize unreservedly to all that were offended.” Carson, a neurosurgeon, was attempting to clarify comments he made earlier in the day to Chris Cuomo on CNN’s “New Day” show. “A lot of people who go into prison go into prison straight — and...

Ben Carson, the retired neurosurgeon and potential Republican presidential candidate, said Wednesday that “a lot of people who go into prison straight, and when they come out they’re gay.” The remarks were made on CNN’s “New Day” in response to a question from host Chris Cuomo, who asked if Carson thought being gay was a “choice.” “Absolutely,” Carson replied. Asked why, he went on to explain his prison theory. “So did something happen while they were in there?” he said. “Ask yourself that question.”

Democratic Georgia Rep. David Scott said that food stamps are necessary because of America’s “policy” of imprisoning families. “First of all, the situation regarding employment and jobs, poverty, all of that. All of that has been structured into our economic, social policy over the last quarter-century,” Scott said at Wednesday’s House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing to review the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), talking about the outsourcing of manufacturing jobs before turning to the incarceration issue. “Our policy of sending so many of our young eligible fathers to prison. Millions,” Scott said. “Our prison population went from 300,000 in...

A first-grader made to sit alone during lunch because of tardiness is forcing the Grants Pass school district to revisit its policy.

Criminal justice reform has been a hot topic lately. It’s something that both Republicans and Democrats can find common ground on. However, I get the sense that many Americans aren’t convinced that it would benefit them personally. Most of us are probably law-obeying citizens whom would never dream of being involved in illicit activities. We don’t have regular run-ins with the police. We don’t sell or use illegal drugs. We’re just normal people trying to do what’s right and take care of our families. So, why should non-criminals care about criminal justice reform? First, eliminating or reducing mandatory minimum sentences would benefit...

When a Vacaville woman tried to end her relationship with a former Baptist minister in late 2013, he told her that she'd created a monster. On Wednesday, Sarah Nottingham explained to a Solano County Superior Court judge that for a week, then-Pastor Mark Lewis showed her what a monster he could be. Nottingham's words came during the sentencing hearing for Lewis, who in January pleaded no contest to charges of arson and stalking. Judge Dwight C. Ely sentenced Lewis to eight years in prison Wednesday in connection with the case that proceeded to a jury trial earlier this year, only...

**SNIP** Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), who chairs the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, says authorities have now managed to recover roughly 16,000 Lerner emails. This has led Johnson to send Koskinen a letter in which the senator writes, “I respectfully request your assistance in better understanding the IRS’s document-retention and -production process.” We prefer the way the senator put it on Fox News: “I smell a rat. I smell a number of rats, and that’s what we are going to get to the bottom of.” We’re as curious as anyone about why the IRS told us the Lerner...

Criminal justice reform is a contentious political issue, but there’s one point on which pretty much everyone agrees: America’s prison population is way too high. It’s possible that a decline has already begun, with the number of state and federal inmates dropping for three years straight starting in 2010, from an all-time high of 1.62 million in 2009 to about 1.57 million in 2012. But change has been slow: Even if the downward trend continues, which is far from guaranteed, it could take almost 90 years for the country’s prison population to get down to where it was in 1980...

Twenty-eight inmates escaped from a Brazilian jail after three women in fantasy police costumes "seduced" prison wardens. Police found three wardens naked and handcuffed inside the Nova Mutum public jail, near Cuiaba, central Brazil, the morning after the mass break-out. The women reportedly drugged the prison guards by giving them spiked whisky after convincing them to take part in an orgy, according to investigators. Inmates then left the prison through the main doors, even taking with them guns and munitions they had taken from prison caches. Police later found a bag of lingerie and dominatrix police uniforms believed to have...