Free Republic

On the campaign trail, President Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden have repeatedly highlighted their efforts to reform the broken criminal justice system. President Trump and Vice President Pence have rightly touted the First Step Act of 2018, which expanded options for inmates looking to get back on the right side of the law. Meanwhile, Joe Biden has advocated for job training for incarcerated individuals, as well as utilizing alternatives to prison, such as rehabilitation facilities.  While these proposals are wholly reasonable, Biden has unfortunately muddied the conversation on criminal justice reform by vilifying private prisons. These non-government institutions...

Activists gathered outside dozens of California detention centers and called for Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) to grant mass clemency to inmates in response to surging rates of COVID-19 infections in prisons around the country. A press release from the California Liberation Collective indicated that protesters gathered in 30 separate locations outside of various state detention facilities including California State Prison Solano and San Quentin State Prison, where activists displayed banners referring to the facilities as Newsom's "COVID death camp[s]." SNIP "He was told he would be released and he signed parole papers to be released in July due to COVID,...

The coronavirus infection spreading across the United States prison system is throwing Ross Ulbricht’s confinement into sharp relief. Found guilty of seven charges including money laundering, conspiracy to traffic narcotics and computer hacking, the controversial founder of the Silk Road is currently serving a double life sentence plus 40 years, without the possibility of parole. As the pandemic worsens conditions for the nation’s large prison population, Ross spends 22 hours a day behind bars in Tucson, Ariz., where he’s currently being held. Outside visits are stopped so Ross’s mother, Lyn, and other loved ones, who work tirelessly for his release,...

...More than 25 years later, as Mr. Biden makes his third run for the White House in a crowded field of Democrats — many calling for ambitious criminal justice reform — he must answer for his role in legislation that criminal justice experts and his critics say helped lay the groundwork for the mass incarceration that has devastated America’s black communities. That he worked with segregationists to write the bills — an issue that recently dominated the political news and seems likely to resurface in Mr. Biden’s first debate on Thursday — has only added to his challenge. So has...

CNN’s Van Jones was not impressed by Donald Trump’s latest speech from the White House, but he did give the president credit for the substance of his executive order on police reform. Jones joined his colleagues on Tuesday to discuss Trump’s address, which was laden with several of the president’s usual talking points and attacks against his political enemies. For the most part, Jones pushed Trump’s remarks to the side and called the order a positive development for future reforms. “There is movement in the direction of a database for bad cops. We have never had a federal database for...

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...

Police say radical activist stole prison blueprints, stashed guns and ammo in facility A former adviser on criminal justice issues to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) was plotting a violent prison escape, stashing guns and ammunition inside a soon-to-be-opened prison, authorities said this week. Nashville police said Wednesday that Alex Friedmann, a prison reform advocate who helped shape the Vermont senator's criminal justice agenda, spent months plotting an escape for inmates of the city's detention center. Sanders worked with Friedmann to develop positions on criminal justice in the lead up to his 2016 presidential campaign—positions Sanders still touts.

President Donald Trump aired a campaign ad during the Super Bowl on Sunday featuring Alice Johnson, whose life sentence for nonviolent drug offenses was commuted by Trump in June 2018. In the ad, Trump touted his criminal justice reform record and featured footage from the emotional moments when Johnson was released from prison and reunited with her family.

As New York City police commissioner, Bernard Kerik was ultimately responsible for the incarceration of many criminals. Now that he has seen the prison system from the inside, having served three years behind bars, he has a new appraisal of the U.S. penal system: "insane." In his first interview since his release from prison, where he served time for tax evasion and lying to federal authorities, Kerik told NBC’s Matt Lauer on the Today show Friday: "No one in the history of our country has ever been in the system with my background.

President Donald Trump has achieved more concrete progress for blacks, gays, and Jews than any other American president.That claim is sure to be disputed, if not mocked, by those for whom grievance and identity politics are a profession or a psychological crutch.Yet it remains true — and was thrown into sharp relief this week, as the Jussie Smollett case turned from one of the most horrific attacks in recent memory to the worst hate crime hoax in history.There are two reasons the media, Hollywood, and the Democratic political elite believed Smollett’s claims.First, he belongs to several victim categories: black, gay,...

Five Pennsylvania parolees have been charged in six homicides over the past two months, spurring the Department of Corrections to investigate whether anything should have been done differently. The accused killers’ supervision levels ranged from minimum to maximum, and they had been out from between three months and two years. Some had already violated the terms of their parole by the time they were arrested, and some had a history of violence.

After a week of backlash for his comments about four minority Congresswomen that many called "racist," as well as chants targeting one of those congresswomen at his rally, President Donald Trump privately met with former NFL player and conservative commentator Jack Brewer at his Bedminster Golf Course to talk about "black America," Brewer told ABC News. President Trump made the unusual move of intervening in the case of black rapper A$AP Rocky, who is currently being detained in Sweden for an alleged assault. After telling reporters that Rocky "has tremendous support from the African American community," Trump held a 20...

Michelle Malkin is angry about this, as all conservatives should be. Malkin points out, Jones has been trying to stop conservatives from speaking for years. The Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) allowed America-hating admitted communist Van Jones to speak on the main stage two days ago on Feb. 28, 2019. To allow this disgusting, unreformed, black-nationalist Maoist to speak at CPAC, an annual event many movement conservatives considered to be their sanctum sanctorum, is truly disturbing. He was there for an on-stage chat with ACU Chairman Matt Schlapp about the conservative contribution to emptying the prisons, or as the Koch...

CNN analyst Van Jones credited the conservative movement with galvanizing support for criminal-justice reform during a Thursday appearance at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC)….(snip) ...“The conservative movement in this country, unfortunately from my point of view, is now the leader on this issue of reform,” Jones said.... . . What you’re seeing now is Republican governors being tough on the dollars. Tough on crime and shrinking the prison population.”

Senators linked arms and voted Monday to advance a new bill combining sentencing and prison reforms, setting up final passage later this week and creating the groundwork for a major bipartisan compromise. President Trump had urged GOP Senate leaders to drop their longstanding objections and allow the bipartisan bill to reach the floor, and Majority Leader Mitch McConnell finally agreed, after the bill was changed a final time to win over some additional conservatives. With those changes in hand, the measure cleared a potential filibuster on a 82-12 vote, far more than the 60 votes needed. The Senate will now...

Since the start of the Trump administration, the calls to reform America’s outdated prison and sentencing policies have grown into a massive chorus that transcends partisanship, race, and class. Thanks to President Trump’s leadership and willingness to work with elected officials across the political spectrum, we are closer than ever to passing new policies that will equip inmates with the skills necessary to enter the workforce while also ensuring our communities remain safe. This can be the most significant legislation for minorities since the 1964 civil rights bill Federal prison reform comes right out of Sen. Kennedy’s playbook Of course,...

The Strasbourg shooter has been identified as Chérif Chekkat, a 29-year-old man born in France who has a long criminal history. Having been convicted 27 times for robbery and other crimes, Chekkat was sent to prison between 2013 and 2015. That’s where he became radicalized and was placed on a watch list by French authorities. From

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said on Tuesday that he will bring up a bipartisan criminal justice bill up for a vote, marking a significant win for supporters including President Trump. "At the request of the president and following improvements to the legislation that has been secured by several members, the Senate will take up the recently revised criminal justice bill," McConnell said from the Senate floor. Backers and advocates have been publicly and privately lobbying McConnell for months to bring the bill to the floor, arguing that they have at least 70 votes in support of the legislation....

The liberal media trashed Cliven Bundy back in 2014 for using a word that Dr. Martin Luther King used profusely until his murder: "Negro" And the "conservative media" ala Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity and Mark Levin also headed for the exits over the matter. But this week the liberal media decided to "come to Jesus" and give Cliven, Ammon and Ryan Bundy some attention for their views on immigration because it appeared to help their anti-Trump cause. But as pointed out in a previous post Ammon Bundy's call for a "process" to be followed to allow some of the migrants...

For a wispy little fellow like Jared, of all the things life has given him to be embarrassed about, having to visit his father in prison has to rank pretty high. Surely we can come up with a better way for him to deal with the shame and humiliation of his father being a convicted felon than sentencing thousands of Americans to a new and dangerous crime wave. Jared is the kind of moron who believes that the crime listed on a convict’s baseball trading card is the worst crime he committed. Thus, we’re incessantly told that sentences will be...