Free Republic

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas defended the Biden Administration’s policy of releasing illegal immigrants with criminal records inside the US, calling it “a key fundamental principle of implementing alternatives to incarceration.” “Look, here’s the deal,” Mayorkas said. “Throughout history criminals have been a part of every society. It would be abnormal and inequitable for us to try to impede their necessary migration toward habitats that can better support their needs. Of necessity, this means that wealthier societies must expect to bear a fairer share of the burdens of dealing with them. Insisting that our borders be closed to...

The convicted killers shared the same cell at Corcoran State Prison. Jaime Osuna, 31, had decapitated and dissected the body of his cellmate, Luis Romero, 44, with a makeshift knife... But after prison guards made their rounds, they reported that both men were alive...

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) claimed Thursday the “incarceration of children in Palestine” is similar to the conditions of migrants at President Joe Biden’s managed southern border. “We are scared to stand up to the incarceration of children in Palestine because maybe it’ll force us to confront the incarceration of children here on our border,” she said on the House floor.

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...

BETHLEHEM, Pa. - Imagine there are no prisons; it may be hard to do. Yet that is exactly what social activist Angela Davis challenged an audience of about 725 people to do Monday night at Lehigh University in Bethlehem. The program’s topic was “Mass Incarceration: The Prison Industrial Complex.” **** She also is the author of eight books, including “Are Prisons Obsolete?” and a founding member of Critical Resistance, a national organization dedicated to the dismantling of the prison industrial complex by “challenging the belief that caging and controlling people makes us safe.”

A common, and emotionally potent, criticism of incarceration in the United States is that it harms children by taking parents and siblings—mostly fathers and brothers, since men account for more than 90 percent of prisoners—out of their homes, depriving families of caregivers, role models, and breadwinners. “More than 2.3 million people are incarcerated in the United States,” writes Black Lives Matter cofounder Alicia Garza, in an essay published by the Brennan Center for Justice. “That’s 2.3 million families that have been torn apart.” In that same Brennan Center compendium, Van Jones, cofounder of the #Cut50 initiative to reduce the incarcerated...

For those of us who spend far too much time following the news these days, it is easy to feel that everything is falling apart. Regardless of your political ideology, there is no doubt that this country is politically divided and facing serious challenges. To make matters worse, we are entering an election season. Politicians will be trying their best to convince us that we are one vote away from choosing between Nazi Germany and Venezuela. Yet, as we gather with friends and family this Thanksgiving, it is worth remembering that, beyond the headlines, things are actually pretty darn good....

Did I hear Cory Booker correctly?

“Government’s first duty,” President Reagan said in 1981 and President Trump recently tweeted, “is to protect the people, not run their lives.” The safety of law-abiding citizens has always been a core principle of conservatism. And it is why we need to take this opportunity to pass real criminal-justice reform now. Although violent crime rose during the final two years of President Obama’s time in office, it decreased during the first year of Trump’s presidency. We need to keep that momentum going. And criminal justice reform can help us do that in two ways. First, commonsense sentencing reform can increase...

Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton are both trying to explain their positions on the 1994 crime bill, a touchstone of the tough-on-crime attitudes that are blamed for the mass incarceration of people of color now. TRANSCRIPT: AUDIE CORNISH, HOST: South Carolina holds its Democratic primary tomorrow. And during their events in the state, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders have been talking about ways they would change the criminal justice system of today, but they're also being challenged on their positions on the issue as far back as 20 years ago. NPR's Tamara Keith reports. TAMARA KEITH, BYLINE: Hillary Clinton was...

Ordinary black people cannot afford to go along with the liberal agenda that calls for undermining police authority. That agenda makes for more black crime victims.Let’s look at what works and what doesn’t work.In 1990, New York City adopted the practice in which its police officers might stop and question a pedestrian. If there was suspicion, they would frisk the person for weapons and other contraband. This practice, well within the law, is known as a “Terry stop.”After two decades of this proactive police program, New York City’s homicides fell from over 2,200 per year to about 300. Blacks were...

The great and powerful Leo Strine figured it all out: Too many black people are spending too much time in prison. Strine should know: He is Chief Justice of the Delaware Supreme Court.  Strine is heading a commission of black history professors, public defenders, diversity officers, ACLU staffers and others to set this right. Their mission: Figure out why cops keep arresting, prosecutors keep prosecuting, juries keep convicting, and judges keep sending so many black people to prison for No Reason What So Ever. And why black people keep returning to prison once they are let out. Not just...

“Sanctuary cities” that refuse to turn over deportable felons to the feds are frequently located in college towns. Yet and still, it’s hard to find academics who will speak ill of them, no matter how much these policies endanger collegians’ lives. Kate Steinle, 32, was not the only recent victim of an attack by an illegal alien with multiple felony convictions. “Department of Homeland Security records show that in just one eight-month period in 2014, more than 8,100 deportable aliens were released by sanctuary jurisdictions,” Hans von Spakovsky writes on The Daily Signal. “Three thousand of them were felons and...

When I was in prison, I used to work out with heavy weights constantly. But when I started to understand that my best chances of survival were actually centered on education, I focused more on that instead, and it has made all the difference in the kind of life I now have. When I was released, having a student aid package was what kept me from having to go back into the underground economy in order to survive. On Monday, Dec. 8, 2014, Attorney General Eric Holder and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan announced a Correctional Education Guidance Package designed...

The Center for American Progress has attempted to tackle a growing bipartisan issue: over-criminalization and over-incarceration. A recent panel discussion at CAP featured University of Texas sociology professor Becky Pettit who argued that “incarceration is deeply concentrated among men, those who are young, and those of color.” She noted out of the 2.2 million inmates in the prison system, “approximately half of them are black.” She claimed that, “Among young black men who drop out of high school, over a third are incarcerated on any given day.” She did not mention that their victims outside the gates are also likely...

The Justice Department (DOJ) is banning smoking and all tobacco products in federal prisons, according to a final regulation to be published Monday.All federal prison inmates will be prohibited from smoking, unless they receive a religious exemption. Staff will also still be able to smoke in designated areas. The government said they are moving forward with the regulation, which goes into effect in 30 days, out of concerns of the health of their inmates.The rule will affect the estimated 80 percent of prison inmates that smoke.“The revised regulations generally prohibit smoking in and on the grounds of Bureau institutions and...

I want to know why no one from CITIBANK is going to jail. The Federal Reserve bails out CITI, the tax payer pays the bill. The Dept.of Justice gets the.money. Now I know I am just S.Texas Tea Party Patriot, trying to stop the influx down here, but how come no white collars are going to prison? Us Americans are getting gangbanged by the government in every hole and wallet. Time to fly the flag upside down and get to work protecting our way of life. O one reason why the illegals are getting shipped all over America is because...

The Knesset approved late Monday night the second and third readings of the amendment to the law to prevent infiltration of illegal immigrants. 30 MKs voted in favor of the legislation and 15 opposed it. The purpose of the law, presented by Interior Minister Gideon Saar (Likud), is to prevent the entry of illegal infiltrators into Israel’s borders and add tools to deal with the phenomenon of the illegal infiltrators already residing in Israel. The law would allow police to jail illegal migrants for up to 12 months in special detention facilities. …

"We’re being locked away in a mass incarceration epidemic that is as bad as the Jewish holocaust." Dr. Boyce Watkins, in a commentary criticizing rap star Jay-Z for his disrespect of Harry Belafonte, made the above remark when lambasting Jay-Z for not doing more for the black community. I am sickened that someone can compare the attempted extermination of an entire group of people to the consequences of criminal actions leading to imprisonment. Not a soul commented on that passage via the website (which I stumbled across through a Facebook "friend.")

South Korea unveils robotic prison guards, promises futuristic cavity searches To round out their drug-sniffing clone dog army, South Korean authorities are now experimenting with robotic prison guards. Lest you think these cyber-wardens will be equipped with gatling guns in the style of Robocop's ED-209, know that this alarm-equipped bot has more in common with the Death Star's delivery droids. Of course, the robots' responsibilities may expand as the technology improves. Explains Reuters of these security machines' potential uses: The robot has been designed to patrol a prison autonomously, but an IPad will allow manual control as well. The next...