Free Republic

SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) — A state appeals court ordered San Quentin State Prison on Tuesday to immediately cut its inmate population by half, which would require transferring or releasing about 1,700 inmates, citing the state’s inability to manage a deadly COVID-19 outbreak at the prison. The First District Court of Appeal in San Francisco ruled that the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) and San Quentin Prison Acting Warden Ron Broomfield “have acted with deliberate indifference and relief is warranted,” the court opinion stated. The ruling stemmed from a case involving 64-year-old Ivan Von Staich, who along with...

Gov. Phil Murphy signed a first-in-the nation bill Monday reducing sentences in a prison system with the highest coronavirus death rate in the country — a move that will release at least 2,000 inmates beginning next month.

Interview By: Peter Tase Vakilabad Prison is located in the city of Mashhad in eastern Iran. This prison has reportedly been the site of hundreds of secret executions carried out by the Islamic Republic of Iran. Not only have the executions taken place secretly, but neither the prisoners nor their families were informed prior to their execution. Mr. Ahmed Shaheed, the former UN special rapporteur on the human rights situation in Iran, has documented more than 300 secret executions in Vakilabad during the past years. Vakilabad Prison is massively overcrowded, which puts the prisoners under severe pressure, with many of...

York County officials confirmed 190 inmates have tested positive for the coronavirus since testing began at the prison last spring. According to county spokesman Mark Walters, 173 inmates or detainees are in isolation as of Saturday. A majority of their positive test results were discovered this week during mass testing, Walters said. He said they are still awaiting the results of 60 tests. “As stated [Friday] the increase in positive results experienced earlier this week, is not unexpected considering the congregate living situation present in the Prison facility and with the increase in communicative spread that we are seeing in...

An estimated 8,000 inmates could be eligible for release by the end of August, in addition to the state’s reduction of about 10,000 inmates since Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency in March, the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) said.The CDCR says its previous “pandemic emergency decompression efforts” have reduced inmate populations system-wide by approximately 10,000 people already, to reduce the risk of COVID-19 transmission within its facilities.“These actions are taken to provide for the health and safety of the incarcerated population and staff,” CDCR Secretary Ralph Diaz said in a news release. “We aim to...

As many as 8,000 California prisoners could be released ahead of schedule in an unprecedented attempt to stop the spread of COVID-19 inside state prisons, with more than half of the releases expected by the end of the month. The announcement on Friday by top advisors to Gov. Gavin Newsom offered stark evidence of the dire health conditions at several California prisons. On Monday, the top medical officer for the state prison system was removed from his position following criticism of inmate transfers that are believed to have led to a much larger coronavirus problem in prisons than existed this...

ROCKFORD, Ill. (WTVO) — The State of Illinois has released 146 sex offenders statewide, including 3 considered “sexually dangerous persons” convicted in Winnebago and Ogle counties. The State of Illinois released a list of almost 4,000 inmates released from prisons, including 64 convicted of murder. A list released by the state shows each inmate who had their sentence commuted by Gov. JB Prtizker or were released early by the Illinois Department of Corrections. Dennis Secrist, 74, and Brett Singley, 40, who were convicted of sex crimes in Ogle County, and Daniel Anderson, 71, who was convicted in Winnebago County, were...

Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner went on TV to try to persuade criminals "to wait until the COVID-19 pandemic eases up, before you go out to rob, rape, or murder someone. I know you have needs. I know you have scores to settle. But the risk to your own health at this time is too great. Prey on the wrong person and you could get sick and maybe die. I'm not asking you to give up your careers or stifle your passions. I'm just advising you to be patient so you can violate the law later without undue risk to yourself."...

CLEVELAND (WJW) — The Cuyahoga County Court is looking to release hundreds of inmates from the Cuyahoga County Jail Saturday morning due to coronavirus concerns. Judges concerned about the virus spreading through the jail. Cuyahoga County judges are holding a special Saturday morning session to try to settle cases with guilty pleas, release inmates or send them to prison, or release them on house arrest. Administrative Judge Brendan Sheehan told the I-TEAM earlier this week that inmates are already in poor health, and it wouldn’t take much for the coronavirus to spread wildly behind bars. Sheehan also said almost any...

President Trump spoke at an unusual graduation ceremony on Thursday and inspired the class of graduates, all former prisoners. HOPE for Prisoners assists formerly incarcerated people with reentry into society by providing long-term support and services. Founder Jon Ponder experienced significant challenges on his release from prison and noted the lack of resources for others in his situation. He started HOPE for Prisoners to help others.Trump has often expressed his support for criminal justice reform, signing into law several acts that reduced sentencing, shortened jail terms, and stopped the chaining of women in prison as they give birth. His...

Just found this - others have probably seen it but could not find it when did a search here. Another unsung but awesome deed by our President, speaking at the commencement of the Hope for Prisoners graduation ceremony in Las Vegas. The President starts speaking at 50:07.

In one of the more surprising – and puzzling – stories of the 2020 Democratic primary race, we learned this week that New York billionaire Michael Bloomberg has been busy creating jobs long before he gets the chance to do so as president. As a bonus, the jobs were exclusively for women, making his efforts even more relevant in the current political landscape. Unfortunately for him, the press figured out that the jobs he was creating were for female prisoners in an Oklahoma lockup. Oops. (The Intercept) Former New York City mayor and multibillionaire Democratic presidential candidate Mike Bloomberg...

So much injustice everywhere. Those deserving of severe punishment and/or execution don't receive it, and yet this man with all of his wealth and connections does die? Now, reports say his cell mate was transferred prior to his death. If all of those inmates who haven't been executed for crimes far worse than Jeffrey's haven't been executed, isn't it time for prison reform?

At 1%, Muslims are still a small percentage of the population. But there’s one place in America where they are vastly over-represented. State prisons. Take Maryland, which has an estimated 70,000 Muslims, making up over 1% of the population. But of Maryland's 18,562 prisoners, 5,084 were Muslims. That's 27.4% or over 1 in 4 prisoners. It would also mean that 1 out of 13 Muslims in Maryland may have been in a state prison. Those are startling numbers, yet they come from Muslim Advocates, an Islamist legal advocacy group. Both MA’s numbers and the number of Muslims in different states...

ROME, May 23, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) — The Chinese government is harvesting organs from prisoners while they are still alive to supply its lucrative organ transplant industry, a leading expert on China has told LifeSiteNews. He is therefore calling on the Vatican to speak out. Steven Mosher, founder and president of the Population Research Institute, sat down for an interview in Rome this week with LifeSiteNews editor-in-chief John-Henry Westen (see full video below). Westen spoke with Mosher at the May 20-21 John Paul II Academy for Human Life and the Family conference on “Brain Death: A Medicolegal Construct: Scientific & Philosophical...

Democrats have cornered the market on the young, the dead, illegals flooding the southern border and the general prison population as a viable voting bloc. Two little words are missing from the trending headline, ‘Bernie Sanders Wants Boston Bomber To Be Allowed to Vote’. The two missing words? “FOR ME!”. But it’s not just Boston Bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, whose vote Sanders wants, but the potential votes of some possible 183,000 murderers and 164,000 rapists. In fact, Socialist Sanders, Sugar Daddy Dispenser of Free Stuff for All, wants all convicted U.S. felons, no matter how heinous their crime, to be able...

A transgender prisoner says she’ll pursue her fight to have Texas pay for gender reassignment surgery after suffering a loss at the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. A lawyer for Vanessa Lynn Gibson, born as Scott Lynn Gibson, says she’ll ask the full 5th Circuit to rehear the case after a three-judge panel upheld the state’s policy that denies funding for the reassignment surgery. The state will cover hormone and mental health care treatment. In a 2-1 ruling published Friday, the court said refusing to facilitate the surgery does not constitute cruel and unusual punishment as defined by the...

Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh said that the main subject of the meeting between the terrorist organization and UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Nickolay Mladenov was the treatment of Hamas members held in Israeli prisons. According to the Islamic Jihad-affiliated website PALTODAY, Haniyeh told Mladenov that there is a Palestinian Arab consensus on the issue of the security prisoners. In addition, letters were sent from the leadership of the security prisoners, in which the "grave situation" was noted in the prisons because of the measures taken against them. The Hamas leadership asked the UN Secretary-General's envoy to...

Nestoros said the CMP regularly raised the matter of a mass grave in Adana. He added that they also knew of a mass grave in the area of Kyrenia’s Botanical Gardens from information provided by a Greek Cypriot survivor. Plus, the CMP had testimony that bodies had been collected in the area. Under the headline “Buried Alive,” Afrika reported on Thursday that Greek Cypriots taken prisoner were brutally murdered and buried near a river. The information came from a man who claimed he was at the Kyrenia harbour working when he overheard two Turkish soldiers talking about it. At the...

Since President Donald Trump took office, his administration has secured the release of 17 prisoners foreign governments had detained. “We’ve had 17 released, and we’re very proud of that record. Very proud. And we have others coming,” Trump said Saturday evening as he welcomed home Joshua Holt, an American citizen who had been detained in Venezuela for two years without trial. Unlike his predecessor, the president has managed to bring these prisoners home without freeing terrorists or paying millions of dollars in suspected ransom payments. 1. Sabrina De Sousa: Portuguese-American Sabrina De Sousa, a former CIA agent, was arrested and...