Free Republic

Workers in Johnson County could have hundreds of additional dollars taken out of their paychecks annually to help pay for roadwork in the county and an expansion of the county jail — work expected to cost more than $130 million in the next five years. The Johnson County Council unveiled an income tax increase proposal to fund $110 million in road, bridges and infrastructure improvements across the county, mainly due to the construction of Interstate 69, and an estimated $20 million jail expansion project that would address a frequently overcrowded jail that the state has ordered the county to fix....

Michael Hough, a second-term Republican state legislator from Frederick County, Md., is about as conservative as blue-state legislators come. He played a prominent role in opposing the state’s new gay marriage law, holds an “A” rating from the National Rifle Association, and received a 100 percent score from the state’s business lobby. The major focus of his legislative agenda, however, crushes any stereotypes that might come to mind, given his résumé. Hough wants to reform America’s prisons and help the more than 500,000 people who come home from correctional facilities every year. In the past few years, he’s successfully pushed...

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...

OTISVILLE — That's the sound of the men working on the gold-chain gang. White-collar criminals and crooked politicians are banging down the door to get into Otisville Federal Correctional Facility in New York — described by some as a castle behind bars. "You could do about anything you wanted there," claimed former inmate John Altman. "It's not just good. It's sweet. That's why you request to go there." Disgraced former state Sen. Carl Kruger will serve out his seven-year corruption sentence in the suburban Orange County lockup. His boyfriend, Michael Turano, has requested to stay there too, and with good...

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Jury foreman Mark Gessner burst from the courtroom seething about the weak case prosecutors waged against a trucker accused of raping a 13-year-old runaway in his rig... Jurors had reluctantly acquitted Kenneth Malcom Robinson after a daylong trial Jan. 19, blaming crucial omissions in a prosecution that could have put the thrice-convicted felon in prison for 60 years. Court-ordered DNA tests were never completed, the trucker's alleged confession to police was not recorded and detectives had failed to locate a man Robinson implicated on the witness stand. "We didn't want to do what we did, but we didn't really have...

FOR A GRIM GLIMPSE of the future of California's correctional system, you need go no further than the California Medical Facility, a few blocks off Interstate 80 in Vacaville. That's what we did a few weeks ago when we visited the prison, the only one in California dedicated to providing medical care to inmates. What we saw pointed to the outcome of a "get tough on crime" policy that began decades ago, and has resulted in the continuing incarceration of thousands of ailing and aging inmates, most of whom present little or no threat to public safety. In mid-September, the...

<p>BRIDGEWATER - On the other side of the bathroom door, she would find cars, lights, people, the highway - safety, if Alexandra Zapp could dodge the man blocking the way out with his body, and a knife.</p> <p>The man had seen her pull in to the rest stop off Route 24, prosecutors said, wearing flip-flops and clutching her wallet and keys as she headed for the ladies' room in the early morning hours yesterday. He had pulled the knife and he had waited for her. Zapp opened the door to her attacker, and what police say happened next surprised no one who knew the fiery athlete: She began to struggle.</p>